


Underground

by leopharry



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Illegal Fight Clubs, M/M, MMA style fighting, Mentions of Blood, Mild Language, Minor Injuries, Most South Park characters will have cameos, Non-Graphic Violence, Only one OFC has any relevance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 04:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leopharry/pseuds/leopharry
Summary: Craig Tucker asks for nothing in life but simplicity. Peace and quiet, frozen pizza, and something cool on the Syfy channel--that's all. Nice and boring, just how he likes it.And then--oh, god damn it, he's getting dragged into shit again, dude, what the fuck.(Wherein Tweek is a kickboxer in an illegal fight club, and Craig, to his ever-decreasing dismay, has to stop being such a boring old man.)





	1. I Drink Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this exactly two years ago, but I didn't plan it in advance, and as a result, I sort of... lost the motivation to write it, but I still really wanted to tell this story. Every year, I participate in NaNoWriMo, and since I didn't have any ideas that I was particularly invested in this year, I figured, what the hell, let's finally finish that old WIP I've had sitting around for two years. Even before starting it two years ago, I had been planning this fic for a while; well before TweekxCraig came out, I had a scene just pop into my head, and ever since then, I've been sporadically working on this. The good news is, I finally, FINALLY wrote it!
> 
> The bad news is, it's, uh... not FULLY complete. I have the first nine chapters written, and the last four chapters written (these thirteen of which were more than enough to win NaNo, so buckle up, kiddies, we're in for a long ride), but the middle is still in progress. However, I DO have everything planned out, and have been coming back to this much more frequently than anything else I've ever worked on, so for once, I do have faith that I'll actually finish this in a timely, scheduled manner.
> 
> That said, until I have the middle complete, I'm going to be updating this once a week. Most likely, it'll be on Sundays, but as for the exact time of the updates, well. We'll just have to figure that out together. :') Once the middle is done, and once I've touched up the ending a little bit, I'll probably update a little more frequently. I'll make sure to keep you posted when we get to that bridge.
> 
> One last note, and then I'll set you free. Kenny, who is my son, plays sort of a strange role in this fic. Not terribly unlike the role he plays in other Creek fics, but... well, you'll see. I want to announce that I DO have plans to write a Kenny-centric fic once I'm done with this one, because I absolutely love My Son Kenny, and would really, really like to expand upon his role, not just in this fic, but in the future-set universe in which this fic takes place. So, if you have any questions about what Kenny's doing or why, feel free to ask, but I might not answer so I don't spoil anything from the next fic.
> 
> Well, I think that takes care of business. For those of you who read the original Underground, sorry for your wait, but I hope this'll make up for it! 
> 
> Please enjoy Underground.
> 
> (The first chapter title: ["I Drink Alone"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpzqQst-Sg8) by George Thorogood.)

Craig Tucker liked his biology lecture until about 12:45 on Fridays, at which point he decided that nothing was worse than the last five minutes of class on a Friday. The professor was just starting to wrap it up when Craig felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He ignored it; as a matter of principle, he never checked his phone in class, and Clyde--the only one who still ever tried to text him while he was in class, whether because he thought Craig might cave someday or because he just forgot when Craig was busy--could wait for five minutes.

Craig’s teacher, a man so old he was liable to drop dead at any second, let them out at 12:47, and it wasn’t until Craig was out of the lecture hall doors that he finally deigned to look at his phone.

“ _Dude kenny told me about this thing going on tonight, him me and token are gonna check it out, you should come with us_ ”

“ _What, like a party?_ ” Craig texted back.

Craig knew that Clyde had class now, but Clyde didn’t seem to have the same scruples about texting in class as Craig did, because Craig got a response only a few minutes later. “ _No, not a party, just this cool thing. I don’t want to ruin the surprise._ ”

“ _If you’re not gonna tell me what it is, I’m not going._ ”

“ _Come on dude, you’ll like it. It’s gonna be really cool, and you never come out with us anymore. You just sit in your apartment like a grumpy old man all the time, and if we want to see you, we have to go there. Just come out with us tonight. It’ll be fun._ ”

“ _Tell me what it is, and I’ll go,_ ” was Craig’s reply.

“ _I_ _don’t want to spoil the surprise! Come on, craig, stop being such a dick._ ”

Craig shoved his phone back in his pocket with a scowl and without replying. If Clyde was going to be like that, then he could kiss his ass. By this point, he was nearing Kenny’s beat-up old pickup, and he found the passenger’s side door, as it always was, unlocked and waiting for him.

“Someone looks happy,” Kenny greeted as soon as he opened the door, quickly pulling his feet off the dashboard and sitting up straight in the driver's seat.

“Clyde’s being an asshole,” Craig huffed. His voice was, as it always was, flat and monotonous, but he felt he was making his mood clear by the way he threw his backpack on the floor by his feet and slammed the door shut, glaring out the window.

“Oh, about the thing tonight? Are you gonna go?” Kenny asked, ignoring Craig's mood as their years of friendship had taught him to do.

“Not if Clyde’s doesn’t tell me what it is. But he doesn’t want to ‘spoil the surprise,’” he said, sounding as derisive as he was able. It wasn’t much, but Kenny seemed to get it.

“Aw, come on, Craig,” Kenny said, turning the engine and pulling them out of the parking space. “Let Clyde have his fun. He actually enjoys life.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“I know, dude,” Kenny said. “But this is going to be really cool. And it’s not a bad surprise. Just something we’re going to go see.”

“Is it a movie?” Craig asked. “Or a concert, or what?”

“If Clyde wants it to be a surprise, I’m not ruining it,” Kenny said, looking both ways before pulling out of the parking lot and towards the apartment building where they both lived. “And if it makes you feel any better, he’s not telling Token about it either.”

“No, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Kenny sighed, rolling his eyes. “Dude. Craig. Come on. You’re being kind of a dick.”

“I’m being a dick,” Craig repeated flatly. “You all are trying to drag me along to something without telling me what it is--which, in case you forgot, has never worked out for me in the past--and I’m the one being a dick.”

“Yeah, you are,” Kenny said. “Clyde and Token aren’t Stan and Kyle. We wouldn’t ask you to come with us if we didn’t think you’d like it. Plus, getting you to do anything outside of your apartment has been like pulling teeth lately.”

“It’s not my fault shit costs money,” Craig said, crossing his arms defensively.

“Clyde’s paying your entrance fee, it’s only like, five bucks. I’m paying for Token, so you guys aren’t wasting money on something you might not like,” Kenny explained.

“I thought you said I would like it,” Craig said, raising an eyebrow.

Kenny rolled his eyes again. “Just in case, Craig. Now stop being a dick and just come hang out with us. We never see you anymore.”

Craig scoffed. “Kenny, you live one floor below me. You walk into my apartment daily like it’s yours. You see me all the time.”

“But Clyde and Token don’t,” Kenny pointed out. “They have to make an effort to see you, and you’ve been their best friend since preschool. You don’t make any effort for them, and that’s not cool, dude.”

“You’re not going to guilt me into it,” Craig lied, already starting to sway. Kenny raised a good point, but Craig didn’t want to admit it.

“I won’t, but Clyde will, any second now,” Kenny said.

Craig wasn’t going to lie; Kenny could be kind of spooky sometimes. He had this way of saying things that made it seem like he knew a lot more than he let on. Craig didn’t know if he was psychic or something--not that he believed in that sort of thing, but if anybody could be, it would be Kenny--but as soon as he finished talking, Craig felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Side-eyeing Kenny, who was grinning mischievously out the windshield, Craig pulled out his phone to a text from Clyde.

“ _Look, dude, i’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you a dick, that’s my bad. But you never come out with me and token anymore, and if we want to see you, we have to hang out at your place. And that’s fine, we don’t care!!! But i heard about this really cool thing tonight and we all want to go, and i think you’d really like it and i want you to come too._ ”

Craig sighed heavily, and texted back, “ _What time is it at?_ ”

Kenny was quietly smug the entire way home.  
  


* * *

  
Craig didn’t have a lot of time between classes and work, so as soon as he got home, he threw his stuff haphazardly on the couch and hurried to go change his clothes. He worked in reception at a vet’s office, and when he wasn’t busy in the office, he helped out in the kennels. This was not a clean job, so he liked to wear clothes that he wouldn’t mind getting dirty.

He was putting his coat and boots back on when Kenny barged in without knocking. Kenny never knocked, not at Craig’s, but it was fine; the rare few times Craig went down to Kenny’s apartment, he didn’t knock either.

“Hey, you want a ride?” Kenny asked. “I’m heading over to my parent’s place to get Karen, anyways.”

Craig shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Beats walking.”

“You know, the vet’s office is like, a five minute drive from here,” Kenny pointed out.

Craig just stared blankly. “And it’s a fifteen minute walk, what’s your point?”

Kenny just shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. I got your mail, by the way.”

Craig grimaced and took it. His cable bill and electricity were due this week. He loved living on his own, but paying bills could suck a dick. He threw the envelopes on his coffee table and said, “I’ll deal with that later. Let’s go.”

They were quiet as they walked downstairs (the woman who lived in the apartment next to Kenny’s was infamous for filing noise complaints with the landlord), but as soon as they got outside and into Kenny’s truck, Kenny said, “So, you are coming tonight, right?”

Craig just glared at him. “You knew I would.”

Kenny smirked. “Yeah, I did. Just double checking.”

“You still won’t tell me what it is?”

“Nope.”

Craig just sighed, and watched South Park pass out his window.  
  


* * *

  
Being a receptionist at a vet’s office, Craig loved his job. Or, rather, he loved the animals. The people he could live without, but the animals were cool. He mostly took phone calls, scheduled appointments, and checked patients in, but there were times of the day when the phones were silent for a while, and the waiting room was empty, and when they were, he would sneak back to the kennels (he wasn’t supposed to, but who could resist the siren’s call of needy animals?), where a whole menagerie was resting and recuperating after illnesses or surgeries. It was mostly cats and dogs; most of South Park seemed to prefer those two over anything else, but they had a stable and a barn out in the back where they could keep horses, cows, pigs, or sheep for the local farmers. Sometimes they had really interesting animals; today, for instance, Craig found himself dropping a small handful of crickets in a terrarium for a bearded lizard, and he watched in awe as the lizard--which only a week ago had refused even the most tantalizing of grubs--chased them around its cage, chomping them up one by one.

They had a guinea pig in, too; Craig spent the early hours of the afternoon cooing at it as it napped cradled up in his hat on his lap.

He wasn’t allowed to have pets in his apartment, even caged ones; this had been a devastating blow when he first moved in almost three years ago, but the apartments he’d looked at that did allow pets were too far out of his price range, so he’d had had to settle. At least he could see the animals at work, he figured. Sometimes he came in on the weekends with the excuse that he had extra work to do in the office, when in all honesty he had just come to gawk at the animals, and the woman who worked in the back on weekends was always grateful for extra help. And it worked out pretty well. It never felt like what he was doing was work, or at least on that side of things. Every moment he sat in his desk chair, gazing longingly toward the door to the kennels, that felt like work, but he usually had at least an hour to spend there, so it balanced itself out.

“Craig, would you call the Nelsons? Tell them Scrap is ready to be picked up whenever they’re ready,” Dr. Tompkins said, looking down at the clipboard in her hands, not even noticing that Craig was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

“Okay,” Craig said, and he put the lid back on the terrarium and filed reluctantly back to his desk.  
  


* * *

 

Fridays were his shortest day, and at six o’clock, Craig punched out and logged off his computer, said goodbye to the overnight staff as they were coming in, and began his walk home.

Craig had a car, and sometimes, if the weather was really bad or if he was really tired, he would drive to work. But his apartment wasn’t that far from the office, and he’d rather walk than pay for gas, so day in and day out, Craig walked.

He was home by quarter after six as he always was, and his first order of business was to get the oven preheated. Today would be a pizza day, he figured; frozen pizzas were one of the easiest things to make, and so he ate them probably more times in a week than was healthy.

His second order of business was to shower and change out of his work clothes. The guinea pig, upon realizing that it was in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar face leering down at it, had peed in his lap, then squealed and wheeked until Craig put it back in its cage. Once he was in a clean pair of jeans, hair plastered to his forehead, Craig put the pizza in the oven, then sat down on his couch and put on the Syfy channel. Some movie was playing, and it wasn’t set in space, so Craig changed the channel until he found something else to watch.

When his pizza was done, he plated a couple of pieces and grabbed some soda from the fridge, then returned to his seat on the couch.

These were his days. School, work, and dinner. Sometimes he studied while he ate, or did his homework, and sometimes Kenny or Clyde or Token or any combination of the three of them would come over, but without fail, this was his routine. It was comfortable and familiar, and he wouldn’t call himself happy--he wasn’t sure he had considered himself ‘happy’ in a long time--but he was content, and he didn’t need anything else.

At eleven, Kenny came in, and the memories of the plans he had made came rushing back, souring his mood instantly.

“It’s gonna be chilly tonight, dude,” Kenny said, throwing himself on the loveseat, kicking off his boots over its arm. They landed perfectly on the mat. Kenny was absurdly graceful sometimes. “Make sure you dress warm.”

“Fine,” Craig grumbled, eyes locked on the TV.

“Clyde’s gonna be here in half an hour to pick us up,” Kenny informed him.

“Okay,” Craig said, then he stood up and stretched. He hadn’t moved once since he sat down with his food earlier, and his back cracked in three different places. “You want some pizza before I put it away?”

“No thanks, dude. Me and Karen had dinner,” Kenny said.

“Okay,” Craig repeated, then went to the kitchen to put away his leftovers. He thought about his own sister, and wondered what it was that made Kenny so invested in spending time with his. They hung out three times a week, sometimes more, and Craig couldn’t count the number of times Kenny had rushed out in the middle of the night at her request. Karen had her older brother wrapped around her little finger, and if she were in any way like Tricia, that could have been a problem. But Craig knew Karen; Kenny sometimes brought her over to Craig’s apartment with him, and they would all hang out together. There was no other way to describe her except ‘sweet.’ Good-natured, mild-mannered, always eager to help anybody and everybody, Karen was an angel, and Craig liked her in the same sort of way he liked his own sister. And Kenny absolutely doted on her; Karen never asked for anything, but Kenny gave her everything. It was actually pretty sweet. Kenny was by no means a hardass, but Karen was the only person who Kenny would drop anything for. Craig suspected Kenny would kill a man for her, would die for her if it came to it.

He wondered what that was like, to be so devoted to another person. He had never felt that before, and he didn’t think he wanted to. It sounded complicated. He didn’t like complicated.

He put on a long sleeved shirt and a sweater over top of it, put on the thick socks he usually saved for when it started to get really cold, and pulled his scarf out of his closet. When Kenny saw that Craig had taken his advice, he nodded, and Craig sat back down in his seat. They watched TV--Craig had put Star Trek on--until 11:30, when they both got a text from Clyde.

“ _I_ _’m here, come downstairs._ ”

So they donned their coats, hats, and boots, and out the door they went.  
  


* * *

 

The town of South Park was surrounded on one side by mountains, and on the other side by rural, hilly farmland and then more mountains, and to go anywhere outside of South Park, you had to drive through one or the other for at least half an hour, if not more. Tonight, they drove straight into the mountains closest to town. The roads were clear, but the trees were snow capped as they were for more than half of the year, and the further they drove, the denser the forest grew until the sky was completely blocked out by a canopy of shaded white, save for a thin clear line above the road. Craig watched it out his window, watched the stars follow them overhead, and felt pleasantly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Clyde, Token, and Kenny were all amusing themselves on the drive by having Token try to guess where it was they were going. Token was without question the smartest of the four of them, but Clyde informed him with savage glee that he would never guess what it was.

“Is it like....” Token said, thoughtful but frustrated from the passenger’s seat. “Like a zoo or something?”

“Nope!” Clyde said cheerfully, keeping his eyes glued to the road. He had expressed concern that he might miss the turnoff, but Kenny told him he’d keep his eyes peeled too, and so Kenny was staring out his window just as intently.

“The entrance fee is five dollars,” Token said, glaring at his knees. “What could be that cheap...? And it’s really not a concert or something? Some local band playing somewhere out here?”

“Nah, Craig wouldn’t like that,” Kenny said, and Craig nodded.

“Oh, right, right,” Token said. “So, five dollars... Craig would like it.... Are we going to the planetarium?”

“Uh-uh,” Clyde said. “That’s like, twenty bucks per person.”

“And it’s nothing to do with animals?”

“No animals involved, nope.”

“Well, Craig doesn’t like anything else!” Token said, and if he weren’t so obviously frustrated trying to guess, Craig would have flipped him off. Craig was a complex, multifaceted individual with a wide variety of interests, thank you very much.

“I like other things,” Craig piped up.

“Name one thing you like, Craig, that doesn’t involve animals or space,” Token said, turning to look at him skeptically.

Craig flipped him off now, since he couldn’t think of anything else.

“That’s the spirit, Craig,” Kenny said, grinning. Then he squinted, and said, “Clyde, there it is!”

Clyde stomped on the brakes and turned the wheel quickly. Craig was thrown, first forward into the back of Clyde’s seat, and then across the backseat into Kenny’s shoulder. He bit his tongue.

“Sorry,” Clyde said, giving him an apologetic smile in the rearview mirror. Craig just flipped him off, rubbing his forehead where he hit it on the driver’s seat, feeling like his middle finger was going to get a lot of use tonight.  
  


* * *

 

They drove up a steep, bumpy slope, and the higher they went, the more apprehensive Craig became. His friends had promised he would like it, and he wanted to trust them, but blindly trusting people who coerce you into hanging out with them by calling you a dick ends up with you trapped in Peru, and Craig had been suspicious of surprises ever since then. His parents had thrown him a surprise party for his fourteenth birthday, and it took them two hours to get him to come out of his room and join his party.

Once the path finally levelled off, Craig started to notice a lot of cars parked randomly between the trees, lined back until he couldn’t see them anymore for the forest. At one point, Clyde muttered, “Probably the closest we’ll get,” and turned off the path onto the forest floor. Being careful to avoid both trees and people hurrying back toward the path, Clyde eventually found a spot in between an SUV and a large pine tree.

“All right, this should be good,” Clyde said, cutting the engine and taking off his seatbelt.

“I don’t know about this, you guys,” Token said, slowly removing his seatbelt. “This seems kind of sketchy.”

“Don’t worry, dude,” Kenny said. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see when we get there.”

“Yeah, we don’t have time for doubting, it starts in three minutes, and we still need to walk over there,” Clyde said, looking at his phone. They all climbed out of the car and headed back to the path. Craig was grateful he’d decided to wear boots; the forest floor squished under his feet, and he could hear Clyde grumbling and groaning whenever he stepped in a particularly wet patch.

Once they got on the path, Clyde and Kenny seemed even more excited. Token and Craig, walking behind them, just exchanged concerned looks and followed them silently.

They had been walking for about a minute when two men who were each probably as big as the four of them put together stepped out from behind some trees.

“What’re you here for?” one of them asked suddenly.

Clyde and Kenny pulled out ten dollars each, handed them to the guy who had addressed them, and Kenny said, “We’re here to see the show.”

The other guy looked at Kenny and said, “Hey, you’re the McCormick boy, right?” Kenny nodded, and the guy turned to his friend and said, “It’s all right, Ross, they ain’t cops, they’re fine.”

Ross just nodded and stepped back, allowing them through. “All right, you guys have fun.”

They had walked for another twenty seconds in silence when Craig looked back over his shoulder. When Ross and his friend were no longer visible, he stepped up right behind Clyde, grabbed his shoulder and turned him roughly around, and said, “Dude, what the fuck. What the fuck are we doing here?”

Clyde just brushed his hand off his shoulder and said, “Craig, chill, it’s fine.”

“Why were they worried we were cops?” Token asked.

Clyde stopped and sighed exasperatedly. “You guys. Relax. It. Is. Fine. Can you please just wait and see what it is before you start freaking out? Please?”

Craig and Token exchanged looks again. Token crossed his arms. “Tell us what it is.”

“No, dude, come on, we’re almost there, look, you can see the clearing already--”

“Tell us what it is, Clyde,” Token repeated, firmer this time.

“Guys, it’s gonna start any second now,” Kenny said, trying to walk toward the clearing, and Clyde followed him.

“I’m not taking another step until you tell us what’s going on,” Token said.

“Fine,” Clyde said, turning and following Kenny. “Stand out here in the middle of a dark, deserted path all night.”

Token’s jaw dropped, and he and Craig exchanged looks again.

“Sometimes, I really hate Clyde,” Token said, and Craig nodded in agreement. They both started walking at the same time.  
  


* * *

 

Clyde had been right; the clearing was only a short walk ahead, and when they reached it, Craig couldn’t tell if he felt more anxious or less.

A sizable crowd was gathered around a big square platform, like a stage, raised about three feet off the ground. Large searchlights tethered to the tops of cabins circling the clearing shone down onto it; Craig saw generators on the ground next to each light. The crowd was noisy but subdued; a lot of people seemed to know each other, and everybody was pretty relaxed. Large drums contained bonfires, and small groups were surrounding each one. Plumes of smoke--Craig smelled pot, but some of them were larger, like vape clouds--filtered up through the air, and he saw some people taking swigs from bottles or flasks.

“So, it is a party,” Craig said.

Clyde shook his head. “Nope. Actually, it should be starting any second n--”

“Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and those who do not conform to the gender binary!” A voice suddenly rang through the crowd. It was like a switch had been flipped; the crowd was suddenly silent, and people quickly made their way to stand nearer the platform, upon which a man was standing, speaking through a megaphone. Clyde sent Craig and Token a grin, then turned to watch.

“Welcome,” the man said, flourishing his arms widely, then folding them under his stomach and around his back as he bowed. “To Park County Underground Fight Club!”


	2. Ace of Spades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention in the first chapter that you can find me on Tumblr [here.](http://leopharry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Posting this a day early because I have a SHIT TON of cookies to bake tomorrow, and likely won't have time. I'd rather post early than late. The chapter after this will be posted next week Sunday as scheduled, unless something comes up.
> 
> A good chunk of this chapter was ripped from the original version, but they've still undergone a bit of change. I promise this is the only time it's happened; all the other chapters are entirely new. (Also, I didn't use this chapter toward my NaNo word count, for any of you who would be concerned about that. :P)
> 
> Anyways, happy holidays, y'all! 
> 
> The second chapter title: "[Ace of Spades](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcf7DnHi54g)" by Motörhead.
> 
> _Pushing up the ante, I know you got to see me,_  
>  _Read 'em and weep, the dead man's hand again,_  
>  _I see it in your eyes, take one look and die,_  
>  _The only thing you see, you know it's gonna be,_  
>  _The Ace Of Spades_

“Welcome,” the announcer said a second time, when the cheers and applause died down. He stood from his bow, and put the microphone back up to his face. “My name’s Chris, and I’ll be your host for this evening. We here at the PCUFC are grateful as always for the continued support of our communities, and we hope, as we do every week, that you guys enjoy what you’re about to see.”

“Fight club?” Craig heard Token whisper to Clyde, who just shushed him.

“Now, before we begin, I’m going over the rules,” the announcer--Chris--continued. “I know a lot of you are repeat guests, but there are always new faces showing up, and I like to make sure everybody here is on the up and up. First, what we do here is entirely for fun. We’re a group of amateur martial artists, and we treat this group and these shows the same way we treat any legitimate tournament. We don’t make money; the five dollars we collected from you pay for the premises, and that’s it. That said, we expect these premises to be treated the way you’d treat your own property. There are a bunch of trash cans all over the place, and bathrooms are over there,” he pointed off in a direction behind him. “So make sure your garbage gets put where it’s supposed to go, and please, don’t leave anything behind that doesn’t belong here. That includes graffiti. The guy who rents us this place doesn’t deserve to clean up your mess, so don’t leave one behind.

“Second, again, everything we do here is for fun. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t possibly get in trouble for doing it. So, if the cops show up, we’re not responsible for you. Y’all are on your own.

“Lastly, I don’t know how many of you are into UFC or anything like that,” he started, and got interrupted by some loud cheering from around the crowd. The guy standing next to Craig hollered almost right in his ear, and he cringed away, glaring at him. The guy didn’t notice.

The announcer just grinned and waited. “I guess that’s a bunch of you,” he said, amused. “Well, anyway, for those of you who aren’t, I’m going to go over the makeup of each fight so y’all know what to expect.”

As he spoke, he turned every so often, so that the entire circle of the crowd was addressed. “Every matchup will consist of three three-minute bouts, during which they can use whatever martial art style they know to knock out their opponents. They’re divided by the same weight class standards as the UFC, modified only by a couple of pounds per class to fit how many fighters we have. We start with the heavyweights, then middles, then lights, and then our featherweights.

“The rules are simple: no shots to the neck or below the belt, and when you hear the bell, you stop. Other than that, anything is fair game. If at the end of nine minutes neither fighter is knocked out, we’ll determine the winner based on points; basically, whoever’s shit is more wrecked is the loser,” he said, his voice amping up in excitement. This declaration was met with a few loud whoops and calls, and the announcer, Chris, chuckled to himself.

“Now, to get a little more serious,” he said, and his voice matched his words. “For those of you who’re close enough to see, we’ve got a few people on each side of this square here, dressed in safety vests. Leah, why don’t you come up here for a second,” he said, gesturing to the person in front of him. Leah climbed up onto the stage, gesturing at her vest and posing as if she were in a fashion show. “See? These guys. They are trained first aid responders who have very generously donated their free time to be here and make sure nobody gets too hurt. You listen to these guys. If they tell you to get out of the way, you fucking move, or you’ll answer to every PCUFC member we got; we’re a close-knit group, and if you potentially harm somebody by getting in the responders’ way, you’re gonna pay.”

“All right, everybody,” Chris said, and his voice was pumped up again. “Welcome, once again, to Park County Underground Fight Club!” The crowd cheered again, and Craig could finally feel himself start to get excited. “Let’s get ‘er going! Our first couple of fighters are a pair of long-time PCUFC members! In this corner,” he said, gesturing grandly to his right. Craig looked to see a man--a very large man, probably the largest human being Craig had ever seen--climbing onto the stage. He was wearing only a pair of shorts and some tape on his knuckles, and Craig shivered just thinking about being out here in this cold in so little clothing. “Weighing in at 297 pounds, measuring six foot six, our two-time heavyweight champion, Jeremy ‘The Mountain’ Levinskiiiiiiiiiiii!”

Craig could definitely see how he had earned his nickname.  The guy was monstrous; his arms were as wide around as Craig’s whole body, his legs were probably double that, and his midsection was as wide around as a tree trunk. He had a massive grin on his massive face, and both of his giant arms were raised above his head almost tauntingly, his hands waving enthusiastically, urging the crowd to keep cheering.

“And in this corner,” Chris said, gesturing just as dramatically to his right once he thought he could be heard over the screams of the crowd. “Weighing in at 274 pounds, measuring six foot four, our most recent PCUFC heavyweight champ, Ricky ‘Chrome Dome’ Andersooooooooon!”

Again, before Craig could even see where he had come from, the man was climbing up onto the stage, punching his taped fists together menacingly. He was notably smaller than his opponent, but still probably could beat Craig’s ass into next year, and he looked like he would be a mean son of a bitch. He had no hair on his head--not even eyebrows--which explained his nickname. There were a few loud catcalls from some women up near the stage, but he didn't seem to hear them, because the expression on his face and the way he strutted around the ring definitely indicated that he was ready for a fight. Craig's foot started tapping, and he clenched his fists in his sleeves, watching the two guys on the platform circle around each other, sizing each other up and scowling at each other.

“All right, guys,” the announcer said, addressing the two men now. “I trust you both to give us a good, clean fight. Nothing below the belt. Start at the bell.”

When both guys nodded, grinning madly at each other, the announcer jumped off of the platform, looking back up at it intently.

“Touch gloves!” he yelled, although it was unnecessary; the two had just fist bumped each other, and were talking quietly to the other, though it would be impossible even for the people closest to the stage to make out what they were saying. “Aaaaaaand... FIGHT!”

Then a bell rang, and all hell broke loose.

Anderson, the smaller one, hadn’t waited around for Levinski to start first; as soon as he heard the bell, he jumped right into it, throwing punch after kick after elbow, so hard and so fast, his opponent could barely keep up with him. Even to watch, Craig was having a hard time keeping up with him. For being such a big guy, he was incredibly fast, and he had no sooner thrown a punch as began a kick. It kept Craig on the tips of his toes, watching with the sort of interest he rarely devoted to anything, and with every kick, punch, and dodge, Craig was more and more glad he’d come.

There was no point during their first bout that there was a still moment. Craig realized, at some point when he was focusing so intently, that these two were very familiar with how the other fought, and he was certain that that was what made it more exciting. And these two were definitely not new to fighting; their dodging was impeccably practiced, and what they didn’t dodge, they took with grace, and just kept swinging. It was the most incredible thing Craig had ever seen; even more exciting than the UFC matches his dad and sister liked to watch. There was something about how familiar they were with each other that made it seem more challenging for both of them.

The bell rang again far too soon, Craig felt. The two immediately dropped their fists, and even though one of them was sporting a painful looking black eye and cut above his eyebrow, and the other had blood gushing from his nose and his mouth, they were still grinning madly, and one of them--Levinski, the larger one--gave the other a thumbs up.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Clyde asked smugly. “Isn’t this cool?”

“Okay, yeah,” Token admitted. Craig refused to admit anything, but he kept his eyes on the stage as the fighters took a minute to prepare themselves for the second bout. “This is pretty cool.”

“Pretty worth being dragged out of the house, huh, Craig?” Kenny asked, nudging him with his elbow.

Craig shrugged, but kept watching intently as the fighters moved back to the center of the ring and bumped their fists again. “Yeah, it’s all right.”

Kenny and Clyde shared a smirk, and kept watching. The bell rang, and they were off again.

This time, however, things moved a little slower. They began the bout by circling each other predatorily, seeking out new weaknesses brought on by fatigue and pain from the first bout. In the blink of an eye, Anderson jumped into action, kicking out, lashing out with his fists, and Levinski was unable to dodge or block them all. Anderson, despite his size, managed to pull off a very agile sweeping move, and in his attempt to jump back from it, Levinski fell over. Anderson pinned Levinski to the ground before he could even attempt to get up. With Levinski’s arms pinned down by Anderson’s legs, Anderson’s arms were free to start hitting Levinski in the face repeatedly, and the audience went wild. Levinski’s legs were working frantically, trying to wiggle himself out of Anderson’s pin, but eventually they fell slack, and the bell rang, signalling the end of the bout.

Or so Craig thought; but Anderson was no sooner off of his opponent when the first aid people jumped up onto the platform, immediately sitting Levinski up and pressing cold packs to his face, checking his pulse, opening his eyelids through the blood and shining a small flashlight into his eyes. Anderson hovered around, looking only a little bit concerned, but when Levinski started waving his arms, urging the first aid people to get off of him, Anderson grinned widely and stretched out his hand, offering Levinski some help getting up.

“And there you have it! Our first fight of the night ends in a knockout in the second bout by Anderson! Let him hear it, everybody!”

The audience roared, chanting Anderson’s name, and up on the platform, Levinski took Anderson’s offered hand and stood up, then held up their joined hands, and though Craig couldn’t hear him over the crowd, he could see that Levinski was chanting too.

 

* * *

 

And so the night progressed; fighters were announced and introduced, the bell rang, and people fought. There were two more male heavyweight couples, and then a female heavyweight couple were announced.

“There are girls in this?” Clyde asked, his jaw dropping. When the first girl stepped up on the platform, Clyde didn’t even clap he was so astonished.

“I guess so,” Token said, clapping politely. “I mean, if they volunteer, they volunteer. No sense in excluding them. There are girl UFC fighters too, right? I guess they’re really going for authenticity.”

Clyde stared back at the stage in wonder. When they finally got to fighting, Clyde got just as pumped up about it, if not more than when the guys had been fighting. “Yeah, get her in the face!” he shouted, punching the air around him. “Aw, yeah, get her, get her!” He leaned in toward Kenny, and said, “Wouldn’t mind getting pinned down by her, huh, Kenny?”

Kenny snickered, and kept watching.

After the first female heavyweight couple, there was only one other before they moved down to the middleweights. There were a few more couples of those for each gender, and they tended to take longer per fight. Several of the couples didn’t even end in a knockout, although one of the female fighters was so beat up that one of the first aid responders insisted she be taken to the hospital. Her opponent went with her, carrying her out of the clearing in a fireman’s carry; she was apparently so worried about her, she was nearly in tears, or so the audience was murmuring.

And that was how things seemed to be between these people, Craig realized. They were a tight-knit group of friends, above all else, who just so happened to really enjoy fighting each other. Craig wondered how they were able to be so cool with each other; if he fought his friends so constantly and so violently like that, and anticipated that they would beat him up just as much, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay so chill with them.

After the middleweights, they moved into the lightweights, and these people were so significantly smaller than the weight class before them, Craig couldn’t imagine that there was an even smaller weight class after them. However, it was when the lightweights started to fight that things started to really get intense. Each one showed a serious increase in agility compared to the middle- and heavyweights, and could throw faster punches and kicks much more swiftly. There was one lightweight male fighter that Craig couldn’t even see moving until his blows landed. It was unbelievable, the moves some of these people could do; there was one girl who pulled off what almost looked like dance moves, her body so fluid Craig dazedly wondered if she even had bones.

After the last female lightweight opponents finished in a knockout in the last few seconds of the last bout (that had been particularly exciting; Craig’s heart hadn’t beat this fast in many, many years), the announcer climbed back up onto the platform, and the crowd, as it had done every time he got up there to speak, fell completely silent again.

“And that wraps up our lightweight class! Let’s give them all one last huge round of applause!” He waited patiently as the audience let out a loud wave of cheering and clapping. When it finally died down, he said, “We at PCUFC are happy to introduce our next group of fighters, and start with our featherweight class! Long time audience members will remember that up until last year, we only had the heavys, the middles, and the lights! But when a few newbies entered our ring at the beginning of last season, we just had to open up a new class for these little guys and gals! But audience members will know not to let their size deceive you; these people can still pack a ferocious punch! All of them weighing in at under 145 pounds, our featherweight fighters have honored us and are honored in return to continue their own class championship, and we’re excited to have them! Let’s hear a big round of applause for our featherweights!”

He waited patiently for the crowd to quiet down, and then he gestured to the right. “In this corner, weighing in at 123 pounds, measuring five foot three, our newest member, Joshua ‘Stun King’ Kingstooooooon!”

Craig couldn’t even see the guy climbing into the ring until he was standing next to the announcer. It wasn’t just that he was thin; he was incredibly short, and he had a babyface to such an extent that Craig whispered to Token, “Do you think they let kids in here?”

“No way, dude, that guy has to be old enough,” Token replied, but he didn’t sound too sure. Apparently the announcer noticed that a lot of people were whispering, and Joshua looked a little put out.

“I’d like to assure everyone that Josh here is older than he looks,” Chris said, his voice flat. “The man’s twenty years old, and he could kick all your asses.”

That got a laugh from a few people, and after that, Josh got his due applause. Craig watched him say something that looked like ‘thanks’ to the announcer, who just clapped him on the back.

Once Josh’s applause died down, Chris gestured to the left. “And in this corner, weighing in at 132 pounds, measuring five foot six, our twice consecutive lightweight champion and last year’s featherweight champion, Tweek ‘Blonde Roast’ Tweaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!”

Craig didn’t really register the name, just clapped politely and tried to look and see who it was climbing into the ring now until somebody--likely either Kenny or Clyde--punched him on the shoulder.

“Dude, what?” Craig asked, turning around to look, but upon seeing the dropped jaws of his friends as they stared up at the stage, he turned back to look, and his own jaw fell straight to the ground.

Out of every single person who has ever occupied space in South Park, Colorado, Craig would anticipate Tweek Tweak participating in any sort of fight club less than anybody else he had ever known. Not because he couldn’t fight; Craig remembered getting into a couple fist fights with Tweek before they started dating, and even though he’d been kind of chubby as a kid, his knuckles were bony, and whenever he felt called to fight, he punched with the intent to hurt. No, the shocking aspect of this was that Craig was absolutely positive that this whole setup was incredibly illegal, and Tweek was not one to break the law, too paranoid to risk getting in trouble.

By this point, Tweek had stood up on the stage, and Craig was shocked all over again; not just to see him there, but to see him, his body. That had undergone a very drastic change since Craig had last seen him.

“Dude,” Clyde said in awe. “Tweek dropped out of school to get fucking _ripped_.”

“Yeah, he’s ripped, but look,” Kenny pointed out. “Look at how calm he is.”

Craig looked again, and Kenny was right. Tweek was a twitchy, anxious person, he always had been. And he was especially anxious when people’s eyes were on him; by all rights, he should have been twitching up a storm on the stage. But he was perfectly calm; in fact, he seemed excited, giving his opponent a shit eating grin and hopping from foot to foot.

“Craig,” Token said suddenly. “Did you know about this?”

Craig shook his head quickly, unable to take his eyes off of Tweek. “No. He wasn’t doing this when we were kids. I didn’t even know he liked fighting,” he said.

“I wonder if he’s good,” Clyde asked.

“He was the lightweight champion twice, and the featherweight champion last year, so probably,” Kenny pointed out.

Clyde looked at Tweek with renewed interest, just in time for the announcer to step in between Tweek and Josh.

“Good, clean fight, boys,” he said, looking mostly at Josh. They both nodded, and Chris climbed off the stage. “Touch gloves.”

As they did, Tweek said something to him through his smirk, and Josh just grinned toothily and said something back, and then the bell rang, and they began.

Josh started immediately at the bell, throwing punches, but Tweek just bobbed and weaved, avoiding every one with a sly smile, cheekily baring his teeth. Josh was on the full offensive, and Tweek was not only untouchable, but he also never threw a punch, either. He stayed close enough in range for Josh to strike, but moved away at the last minute, hopping and ducking and dodging as if it were all a game.

Josh seemed to realize this, and he took a couple steps back, waiting to see what Tweek would do. There was a pause as they eyed each other up, and then Josh stepped back in, throwing himself into a spinning kick, and Tweek almost avoided it by stepping back, but Josh just managed to clip his thigh. Tweek hopped back again, grinning just as widely as he had been, and that only seemed to egg Josh on. Throughout the last minute of the bout, Josh came at him harder and harder, and Tweek just kept dodging and ducking, and still never threw a punch. It was obvious to Craig exactly what Tweek was doing. He was waiting for Josh to tire himself out, slow himself down, and then go in for the kill. And the only reason Josh didn’t see that was because Tweek just kept grinning and aggravating him by seemingly not even trying.

The bell rang, and Tweek sauntered over to his corner, and Josh stomped darkly over to his.

“Dude, Tweek didn’t even do anything,” Clyde said. “He just hopped around.”

“I think that was his plan,” Token said, a note of respectful awe in his voice.

Clyde just squinted at the stage, and they all fell silent and kept watching.

Craig, on his part, could not take his eyes off of Tweek, even after the bell. He could barely register anything else going on in his shock. He couldn’t tell if it was more or less surprising that Tweek was good at this; Tweek was usually good at whatever he tried, and if he wasn’t, he worked tirelessly at it until he was, but he’d never been particularly fond of sports, or running around like the other kids. Craig wondered when he’d started this, how long he’d been doing it. The announcer had said he was a champion three times; if they held championships once a year, that was already at least three years.

Craig watched him casually crouch by the edge of the stage, talking to some of the people standing there. It had been so long since they’d talked (Craig thought the last time they’d even had a conversation, he’d been twelve), they could have been Tweek’s best friends for all he knew. He realized that that felt sort of weird. They used to be best friends--and even when they were boyfriends, Craig still considered him one of his best friends on top of that--and now they were practically strangers.

The bell rang, and Tweek and Josh went back to the center of the ring.  Tweek bore his shit-eating grin again, and Josh just looked aggravated. They bumped fists (Craig wondered why the announcer told them to touch gloves when none of them wore gloves, but he supposed it wasn’t really important), and then the bell rang again.

Josh, during the break, seemed to realize what Tweek was doing, and hung back. Or maybe Tweek had tired him out, and Josh was being more proactive in his defense. Tweek took this opportunity to jump on the offensive, and it became clear that Tweek had been successful in baiting him into tiring himself out, because Tweek landed hit after hit, and Josh wasn’t able to get out of the way in time. Eventually, Josh stumbled and fell to his knees, and Tweek hesitated for just an instant before falling on him, pummeling him until the bell rang.

As soon as he heard that bell, Tweek was up on his feet, jumping back to let the first aid responders take a look at Josh. He hovered, though, biting his nails and watching closely, and Craig almost smiled because that was exactly what the Tweek he knew would do. When the responders finally backed away and let Josh stand, Tweek visibly sighed in relief. He held out his hand and Josh grabbed it, and they shook hands, talking to each other.

The announcer climbed onto the stage, raising his megaphone and saying, “All right, everybody, let’s give another big round of applause for Josh!” The audience clapped and cheered loudly, and Josh raised one of his fists, grinning wryly through the blood on his face. When everybody quieted down, he continued, “And let’s hear it for Tweek! This is his eighth consecutive win this season!”

The audience roared, and Tweek just raised his fist with a proud smile the likes of which Craig had never seen on his face. It was bizarre; it was like Craig was in some weird mirror world, and this person he was looking at was the opposite Tweek, proud and confident where the Tweek he knew was anxious and full of doubt.

Then they climbed off the stage, and Craig’s feet moved before he even realized he was moving.

“Craig, where are you going?” Token asked.

“I’m gonna go find Tweek, hang on,” Craig said, ducking into the crowd and weaving his way around.

By the time he got to the other side, the direction in which Tweek disappeared, he was at a loss. He had tried to keep an eye on Tweek’s honey-blonde hair, shorter now than it was as a kid, but he had blended into the crowd and Craig lost track of him. And beyond the crowd was only empty space and unoccupied cabins. Frowning, Craig hurried back into the crowd, heading toward the stage.

The next pair of fighters had already started, but Craig was no longer interested in that. He found the announcer and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” he asked, tilting his head but not taking his eyes off the fighters.

“I’m a friend of Tweek’s,” Craig said. “And I was trying to find him, but I don’t know where he went.”

“Sorry, bro, I can’t tell you that,” he said. “Safety reasons.”

“I just want to talk to him,” Craig said, annoyed. “We used to be really close, but I haven’t seen him in years. I just wanted to--”

“Dude,” the announcer said, his voice firmer, though his eyes never left the events on-stage. “I’m not telling you. Tweek never mentioned any friends coming, and I don’t know you. I’m not telling you. Now back off.”

Huffing out a breath, more irritated than he really had any right to be considering he hadn’t had any sort of contact with Tweek in years, he went back to where Clyde, Token, and Kenny were waiting.

“Did you find him?” Kenny asked.

Craig scowled. “No, I lost him in the crowd, and the announcer wouldn’t tell me where he went.”

Kenny clapped him on the shoulder, grimacing sympathetically and saying, “Sorry, dude. You’ll get him next time.”

Craig just scowled down at the ground, kicking a twig out of his way. “Whatever. I’m gonna go sit in the car. I’ve seen enough.”

He started making his way toward the path leading away from the clearing, and he thought he’d be going alone until Clyde caught up with him. Kenny and Token were close behind.

“We’ll just get going,” Clyde said. “This was cool, but nothing’s going to beat seeing Tweek beat the shit out of somebody.”

Craig nodded and kept walking, grateful as he occasionally found himself that his friends knew him so well. They walked quietly to the car, Kenny leading them, and Craig just followed silently, his hands in his pockets, lost in thought, remembering.


	3. Strangers to Ourselves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Strangers to Ourselves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGjQGTcYI-c) by Modest Mouse.
> 
> _We're lucky that we're so capable to forget_  
>  _How lucky we are that we are so easy, so easy to forget_  
>  _How often we become susceptible to regret_  
>  _I do regret_

As soon as Clyde got the car back onto the path that would lead them down the mountain, the conversation began. “I just can’t believe Tweek kickboxes,” Token said, shaking his head in awe.

“And he’s so ripped, dude!” Clyde said. “When the hell did that happen? I thought he hated sports.”

“He must have been doing this for a long time,” Token said. “He was really good. He only got hit the one time.”

“Maybe that other guy just sucked,” Clyde suggested.

“No,” Craig interrupted, pulled from his thoughts the instant Tweek was brought up. “No, Tweek wouldn’t go up there and do it in front of people if he wasn’t good at it. And not good by any measurable standards. He would have to think he’s good at it.”

“That’s true,” Clyde said, nodding, but keeping his eyes fixed on the narrow, steep path. He had his foot pressed on the brake, moving slowly so as not to lose control. For all that Craig liked to give him shit about it, Clyde was far and away the best driver Craig knew.

“And he was so, like,” Token started, trying to find the words he wanted. “He was so calm. He didn’t twitch or anything, and he was all cocky and smug. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that.”

“Whenever I go to Tweek Bros., he’s twitchy there,” Kenny piped up.

“Well, his parents never really did anything to help calm him down,” Token said bitterly. Craig nodded in agreement. He had a long list of unaired grievances he still held against Tweek's parents, but Tweek would never hear a word against them, so he'd always kept them to himself. “The best they ever did for him was sign him up for homeschooling after middle school started.”

“Oh, is that what happened to him?” Kenny asked, eyes wide in realization. “I thought he’d been like. Committed somewhere.”

Craig scowled. “That was just a rumor,” he said darkly. “And I’m pretty sure it was Cartman who started it. Asshole.”

Kenny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, probably.” Then he looked at Craig. “So what happened? Did they just finally realize that Tweek should probably be kept away from people, or what?”

“He started middle school with us,” Craig said. “But he got really overwhelmed by everything. He’d go home and have really bad panic attacks every day. After two weeks, the principal got together with his parents and they all talked and decided that homeschooling would work better for him.”

“That must have sucked,” Kenny said, his mouth quirked sympathetically.

“Yeah, it did,” Craig said, looking out the window, remembering. He had never spent as much time at the Tweak household as he had those two weeks. Every day he had to lead Tweek back to his house because he didn't trust himself to get home safely, as panicked and distracted as he was. His parents would bring him coffee, and he’d spill half of it on himself just from all the shaking. They’d try to do their homework once Tweek started to calm down, but Tweek would be twitching and tugging on his hair and biting his nails the entire time. He would barely eat anything at dinner, and then he’d spend the rest of the evening until Craig had to go home apologizing for being that way.

Craig felt terrible. Nothing he did seemed to help, none of his usual tricks to lead him back to stability worked. They had a couple of classes together, and the classes they didn’t have together, Craig walked him to, even if it made him late for his own class, just because it made Tweek feel less alone. He found him every time the bell rang, and as the day carried on, Tweek just seemed to get worse and worse until the end of the day, every day. Every noise set him off; every locker door slamming shut made him scream, every shout down the hall made him jump. If he met eyes with someone or accidentally bumped into someone’s shoulder, he was nearly in tears.

And then the Friday of the second week rolled around, and Tweek accidentally dropped his lunch on the floor, and that was it. He spent the rest of the day in the nurse’s office, twitching and shaking, crying because he was scared and frustrated but unable to get a hold of himself. Craig wasn’t allowed to stay with him, no matter how much he protested, and when he tried to find Tweek at his locker at the end of the day, he wasn’t there. Craig had called him, and Tweek asked him to come over, so he headed right there, and Tweek told him, calmer than he’d been those two weeks, but staring resolutely at the floor, unable to meet Craig’s eyes, that the principal had met with him and his parents, and they’d decided to homeschool him. Craig had never been so relieved in his life.

“So, then, what about you two?” Kenny asked. Craig, who had been lost in thought, turned to look at him.

“What? What about us?”

“Well, you two were still together, right? You were still dating in middle school?”

Craig nodded. “Yeah.”

“But you two stopped talking after a while,” Kenny said. “What happened?”

“Hey, yeah,” Clyde said, briefly glancing at Craig in the rearview mirror. “Like, after he left school, we all kinda fell out of touch with him, but you two still talked for a while. What happened?”

Craig frowned, and looked back out his window, trying to remember. He knew that they still talked all through seventh grade; Tweek still had to take his final exams at the school, so they’d attended those together, and hung out afterward. But when eighth grade started, Craig couldn’t really remember seeing much of Tweek at all. He racked his brains for any memories from that summer, anything big that might have happened between him and Tweek, but nothing came to mind. That entire summer was just kind of a blank.

He tried to think of the last time he could remember them hanging out, in the hope it might give him some clues. It had been during the first few weeks of summer, and nothing had been any different. He’d helped Tweek out with his chores, and then they had gone to Craig’s house and watched Red Racer, since the TV network it was on had been marathoning it in anticipation for the next season. Nothing had been out of the ordinary; they hadn’t argued, Tweek was less anxious like he usually was around Craig. Craig didn’t remember saying anything to set him off. It was just a normal day. But at some point after that and before starting eighth grade, they’d broken up, and Craig couldn’t remember why. It bothered him, he realized; this was a pretty big thing to have happened, and he couldn’t remember it.

“I don’t know,” Craig said slowly. “I don’t remember.”

“Huh,” Kenny said. “You guys didn’t fight or anything?”

Craig shrugged. “I don’t think so. I know at the end of seventh grade we were still together, but anything after that is just gone.”

“Oh,” Kenny said simply. He didn’t say anything else, and, thinking that was going to be the end of it, Craig looked back out his window, trying to remember and getting increasingly frustrated with himself when he couldn’t. But after a minute, Kenny started snickering. “You know, it still gets me sometimes how you two started dating just ‘cause the entire town shipped you.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Craig said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t remind me.”

“That was just so weird,” Token said, laughing. “All this art of you and Tweek just started showing up one day, and that was it.”

“I think my dad still has his collection somewhere in the garage,” Craig said darkly.

“I know my dad does,” Clyde said, grinning. “He’s still got one framed in his room, I remember the day we went and bought it.”

Craig grimaced with an audible, “Ugh.”

Clyde gave him a sympathetic look in the rearview mirror. They had reached the main road a few minutes ago, so Clyde was a little less paranoid. “I can sneak it out of there if you want, dude.”

Craig shook his head. “No, don’t bother. It’s fine, I guess. The whole thing still pisses me off, though.”

“Invasion of privacy?” Kenny asked.

Craig pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. “No, not that. Me and Tweek talked about it once. He put it in words perfectly, it was something like. The whole thing forced us to address our sexualities on their terms, not ours. Or something. I don’t remember.”

“No, that makes sense,” Clyde said. “Like reverse heteronormativity, applied only to you two. That plus the fact that you two were pressured into it for the sake of the town’s morale, and I don’t blame you for being pissed off.”

“Uh,” Craig said, his eyebrows riding his hairline. “Yeah. Well. No. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter now. I’m gay, it’s whatever. It’s not a big deal anymore. But at the time, it sucked.”

“I still can’t believe we used to think you were straight,” Kenny said, laughing and shaking his head.

“I still can’t believe that _I_ thought I was straight,” Craig said, snorting. “Weird. But what are you gonna do.”

“Oh yeah, it’s weird to think that now, for sure,” Token said. “But at the time? I’m not gonna lie, man, that really threw me.”

“I remember,” Craig said, grinning. “You didn’t talk to me for a week after the whole yaoi debacle.”

“I know,” Token said apologetically. “I’m still sorry about that, by the way. It wasn’t because I cared you were gay or anything. I think I was just in shock. We’ve been best friends since preschool, and you think you know everything about someone and then that happened and it was just like. Whoa. You know?”

“Oh man,” Clyde said, starting to laugh. “I remember when I first heard about it. I was such a dweeb. I was just like, ‘Oh, Tweek and Craig are dating? Neat,’ and that was it. I didn’t even think twice about it. I don’t think I actually realized that you guys were gay or what gay even was until I was like, fourteen.”

“And that’s why I like you better than Token,” Craig said, flipping Token off when he turned to stare at Craig flatly. Craig had never actually been upset with Token for any of it, but his favorite thing to do any time the subject came up was to give Token a boatload of shit for it. “I know who my real friends are, Token, you asshole.”

“Do you know who I’m surprised didn’t give you any shit for it?” Kenny said suddenly. When everybody looked at him, he said, “Cartman.”

Craig scowled at the second reminder of the evening that he existed, but Token and Clyde nodded in agreement. “Yeah, right?” Clyde said. “He was always, like. Weirdly supportive of you two.”

“This is not a question I ask very often, because I really don’t want to know most of the time, but what was his deal with that, anyways?” Token asked. “I mean, he accepted it before almost everybody else.”

“He accepted it before me and Tweek did,” Craig said.

Kenny just shrugged. “I don’t know, guys. I gave up on trying to figure out why he does the shit he does a long time ago.”

“I’m with Token,” Craig said. “I don’t think I want to know.”

Kenny shook his head, and said, “Fuck, dude, me either.”

 

* * *

 

When they reached Craig and Kenny’s apartment, Clyde waited to make sure they got inside before pulling back out of the driveway. Clyde was always considerate like that. Craig appreciated it and gave him shit for it in equal measure.

“You wanna hang out for a bit, Kenny?” Craig asked on their way up the stairs. He for one was not even close to being ready to sleep.

Kenny pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking the time, then shook his head. “Sorry, dude. I’ve got some shit I gotta get done tonight, I put it off way too late.”

Craig just shrugged. “All right, dude. See you later, then.”

They parted ways at Kenny’s door, and Craig went up one more flight and let himself into his own apartment.

And when he got there, he found himself at a loss for what to do. He was too keyed up to sleep, but too restless to sit still, so studying or watching TV was out. He eventually decided to get a head start on cleaning his apartment; he was planning to do it whenever he woke up, since chores were his usual Saturday plans, but whatever, he could do something else.

Craig liked doing chores. He appreciated that it was mindless work, loved seeing the clean end result, and he focused so much on what he was doing that he didn’t have space for thoughts. He vacuumed the living room (his neighbors could deal with the noise), dusted his furniture, wiped down his counters in the kitchen, cleaned the stove top, and was just about to start sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor when he realized that he was tired. So he sat down on the couch, put on the Syfy channel, and promptly fell asleep before even figuring out what he was watching, sitting upright, his feet propped up on the coffee table, still wearing the clothes he’d been wearing all day.

 

* * *

 

He woke up later to someone shaking his shoulder.

“Rise and shine, Craig,” Kenny said cheerfully. “Time to get up.”

“Dude, fuck off,” Craig said, pushing his arm away and turning to rest his head on the arm of his couch. “I’m tired.”

“Well, stop being tired, then. We’ve got somewhere to go,” Kenny said, throwing himself down on the couch, putting his feet up on Craig’s lap. Craig didn’t bother pushing him off. He cracked his eyes open to look at the clock. It was eleven in the morning. He didn’t know what time he had fallen asleep, but he knew it wasn’t early enough to have gotten a decent night’s sleep at this point.

“I’ve got nowhere to go but back to bed,” Craig grumbled, shutting his eyes again.

“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?” Kenny asked, pressing the tips of his toes into Craig’s ribs. He was still wearing his boots. If he got mud on Craig’s couch, Craig was going to kill him.

“No,” Craig said. He pushed Kenny’s feet off his lap and onto the floor, and Kenny let him.

“Not even a little?”

“No, now shut up, I’m trying to sleep.”

“All right,” Kenny said, and Craig heard him stand up. “Guess I’ll go see Tweek by myself, then.”

Craig’s eyes shot open at that. “What?”

Kenny turned back around, smirking. “I knew that would get your attention.” He sat back down, and Craig just flipped him off. “He still works there, you know. At Tweek Bros.”

“Well, yeah, but he works in the back, doesn’t he?” Craig asked.

“Yeah, when he was twelve,” Kenny said, as if it were supposed to be obvious. “He’s twenty-one now, dude. He works the cash register.”

Craig didn’t know how he felt about that. Tweek had once told him that the thought of dealing with the general public terrified him, and if he could have his way he would work in the back forever.

“Just get dressed and let’s go,” Kenny said.

Craig nodded and stood up, went to his room and changed his clothes. He rubbed mindlessly at the lines on his abdomen that were left from the jeans he’d fallen asleep in while putting on a fresh pair, taking an extra moment to decide which shirt he would wear before deciding it didn’t really matter and grabbing the one closest to him. Once dressed, he walked back out to the living room and said, “Is it cold out?”

Kenny shrugged. “We’re just walking to my truck, dude.”

Craig nodded, grabbed his coat, put on his boots, and followed Kenny downstairs.

 

* * *

 

Tweek Bros. Coffee was a South Park staple, and had been since it first opened, decades before Craig was born. Craig knew a lot more of its history than he cared to, courtesy of Tweek’s dad monologuing at him while Craig helped Tweek finish his chores when they were kids, but he had to admit that it would be weird to live in a South Park without it. When he thought of Main Street, things had certainly changed over the years; shops opened and closed, changed their storefronts, changed their window displays, updated their roofs or siding or paint, changed their names, changed owners, or moved locations entirely. And Tweek Bros. had, too. But it had always been Tweek Bros., and that had never changed.

Kenny pulled into the parking lot and Craig found himself eager to get inside. He’d wanted to talk to Tweek last night, and had been irritated that he hadn’t had the chance. More irritating now however was the fact that it had never occurred to him--not once in the past nine years--that he could just. Go to Tweek Bros. and talk to him there, at any time. Craig didn’t often feel stupid, but having Kenny of all people point this out to him was borderline embarrassing. Tweek and Kenny had been friends as much as Kenny was friends with almost everyone, but they’d never been particularly close as far as Craig was aware. He should have remembered without Kenny having to point it out.

They walked into the store, and except for a couple customers sitting at the tables, it appeared to be empty. Kenny and Craig approached the register, and as soon as they reached it, Tweek stood up, pulling stacks of cups out from under the counter.

“AHH!” he shrieked, jumping and throwing the cups up into the air. They were wrapped in plastic, so they didn’t spill, but one of the stacks almost knocked a pot of coffee off its burner. With reflexes as fast as a cat’s, he grabbed the handle, and a little bit spilled out of the top and onto the floor, but the rest of it was saved.

Sighing in relief, he pushed it back onto the burner and crouched down to pick up the stacks of cups he’d thrown. “S-sorry,” he said through gritted teeth, speaking over his shoulder but not looking at them. “I’ll be with you in a second.”

“That’s fine,” Kenny said, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Craig didn’t move or say anything, just stood there resolutely with his hands in his pockets, hoping not to startle him again. If this was to be their first meeting in nine years, they were already off to a fantastic start.

Up close like this, it was a lot easier to see the physical changes Tweek had gone through over the years. He was taller--that was a given, and Craig remembered the announcer last night saying that Tweek was five foot six. On the shorter side, for a guy; Tricia was five foot six, and still growing a little, but by their age, Tweek was probably as tall as he would get. He wasn’t buff, not like the heavyweights had been, but his forearms were toned where Craig could see them under his rolled-up shirt sleeves. His hair was shorter, too, and it was cut in such a way that it didn’t stick out at odd angles like it had when he was a kid. It was still thick and wiry, still clearly did what it wanted despite whatever Tweek had put in it to try to tame it, and still honey blonde like it had been, but this cut made him look much more grown up, shaping his face in a very flattering way. He looked good, Craig decided, but then, he’d never really been bad-looking, not in his opinion.

Once Tweek got the stacks of cups picked up, he put them on a clear section of the counter and finally turned to the register. “Sorry about that, how can I--” then he stopped short when he saw who was there.

“Hey Tweek. How’s it going?” Kenny asked cheerfully. Craig just raised his hand in greeting, then shoved it back in his pocket.

“Hi Kenny, hi Craig,” Tweek said, smiling at them. He seemed genuinely pleased to see them, which came as a surprise to Craig. His hands were shaking where they gripped the register with white knuckles, but Craig was pretty sure that wasn’t a result of them being there, but just residual tension from the shock they’d given him. “Not bad, how--nngh,” he twitched, his entire head ducking down and his teeth gritting. When it was over, he shook his head and said, “How about you guys?”

“We’re good, we’re good,” Kenny said nonchalantly. “We saw your fight last ni--”

“ARGH!” Tweek screeched, practically jumping over the counter to cover Kenny’s mouth with his hands. Craig stepped back, alarmed, watching as Kenny’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Shh, shh, shh!! No!” he said hurriedly, glancing with frantic eyes over his shoulder at the door to the back room. Then he realized what he was doing, realized the customers at the tables were looking at him oddly, and flailed back, almost tripping over his own feet with a, “Sorry, sorry!! Nngh! Sorry, Kenny!”

“It’s okay, dude,” Kenny said, holding up his arms. “No big deal.”

“It’s just. Hrgh,” Tweek said, twitching again, and then peering back over his shoulder at the door. He bent over the counter to lean in closer, so Kenny and Craig leaned in too. Tweek whispered rapidly through gritted teeth, “My parents don’t know about that. They can’t know. I mean, they know I box, but not. Not that. We can’t talk about that here.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry, dude,” Kenny whispered.

Tweek just shook his head, his entire face drawn like he was in pain, and Craig realized he was twitching again. He looked down and saw Tweek’s fists clenched and shaking at his sides. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.” Tweek took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, but his hands were still shaking. He put on a chipper smile, but he was twitching more now, and despite not having said a word yet, Craig felt guilty. They shouldn’t have ambushed him at work like this. They should have done this some other way. They probably ruined his whole day now. “So, did you guys want something to drink, or did you just stop in to say hi?”

Kenny looked up at the menu and deliberated. “Uh... yeah, I’ll get a coffee. Large, two cream, two sugar?”

“All right,” Tweek said, typing it into the register. Then he turned to Craig, who almost startled. “What about you, Craig? You--ergh--want anything?”

Craig looked up at the menu for a second, then said, “Uh. No, thanks. I don’t like coffee.”

Tweek just grinned, slightly manic but genuine, showing off an impressive row of straight, pearly white teeth. His teeth used to be a bit crooked, Craig remembered; he must have worn braces at some point, just like Craig did. It was funny to realize that they might have worn braces at the same time, could have possibly gone to the same orthodontist, might have just missed each other in the waiting room so many times over the years. Craig felt something indescribable; he wondered how many times that could have happened anywhere, just living in the same town all their lives, how many times they could have just missed each other. “What, still?” Tweek asked.

Craig scoffed out a laugh. He was less amused and more thoughtful, wondering why it had taken so long for them to meet again, but Tweek would be calmer if he acted more openly friendly, so he did. “Yeah, it still hasn’t really grown on me.”

Tweek just shook his head. “All that time you spent here when we were--nngh--kids, and you still don’t like coffee?”

Craig shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It all tastes like ass to me. Sorry.”

Tweek pursed his lips. “Hm. Well. We can’t all have good taste.”

Craig flipped him off, and Tweek chuckled, turning to Kenny. “That’ll be 2.03, man.”

Kenny put his card in the chip reader, and Tweek asked him if he wanted his receipt. Kenny shook his head, and Tweek went to make him his coffee.

“So, what are you doing tonight, Tweek?” Kenny asked, leaning against the counter again.

“When I get out of work, I’ve--hngh--got an appointment to go to, but not for a few hours after,” Tweek told him, pouring coffee in a to-go cup, then reaching for the creamer.”Why?”

“Wanna grab dinner with us? We should catch up,” Kenny said.

Tweek hesitated for a minute, stirring in the sugar, then said, in a faux-cheerful voice, “Yeah, okay. I’m out at four. Wanna meet at Benny’s at five?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Kenny said, thanking Tweek when he handed over the coffee. “Here, let me give you my number, you can text me just in case something changes. You got a pen?”

“Yeah, okay,” Tweek said, tearing off a piece of receipt paper and handing it over to Kenny with a pen. Kenny wrote his number down and passed it over to Tweek, who put it in his apron pocket. Craig was torn between offering Tweek his number too and staying silent. He wound up staying silent, not wanting to bother Tweek any more than they already had. “Thanks,” Tweek said.

“No problem,” Kenny said, taking a sip from his coffee. “Well, then, I guess we’ll get out of your hair. But we’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, see you later,” Tweek said, giving them a tired smile and a short wave before turning back to his cups. Kenny headed outside, and Craig followed along, feeling kind of stupid again, but this time he couldn’t figure out why.

When they got back into the truck, Kenny put his coffee in the cupholder and turned the car on with a wide smile. “That went even better than I expected,” he said happily.

Craig gave him a sidelong look. “We scared the shit out of him and almost got him in trouble.”

“Yeah, but he agreed to go to dinner with us, and I didn’t even have to blackmail him,” Kenny said.

Craig’s mouth worked as he tried to figure out where to start with that. “Were you planning on blackmailing him?” he finally decided on.

Kenny just shrugged. “If I had to,” he said simply.

Craig just sat back in his seat and thought, not for the first time, that Kenny was a strange, strange person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clyde is the Mom Friend, I headcanon. He's the one that'll come over to your house when you're sick to bring you soup and ginger ale and medicine, who calls to check in on you if he hasn't heard from you in a while, who doesn't leave your driveway until he knows you're inside and out of the cold. He's a huge flirt for sure, but he's respectful, even if he can be a bit of a dingus sometimes. He's a bit naive, and doesn't have much by way of common sense, but he's a good, caring friend to have.
> 
> Token is the Chill Friend. He can be a bit stubborn, and he definitely doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but you never have to wonder if Token considers you his friend, because he'll let you know. I think that, of Token, Clyde, and Kenny, Craig is able to handle Token's company the longest before he needs his alone time again because Token'll just go with the flow. If Craig's not feeling talkative, Token will just hang out and not talk. Not so much Clyde; Clyde needs noise, and so will start conversations just for the sake of having a conversation. 
> 
> Kenny's not necessarily a big talker either, but Kenny's silence is a bit unnerving. Craig knows that Kenny has a lot more going on in his life than he lets on, and sure, Craig likes to gossip just as much as the next person, but he doesn't like heavy topics, and he knows that that's the sort of stuff Kenny's got on his plate. Also, he's not that nosy. If Kenny wants to talk to him about his shit, Kenny will in his own time. 
> 
> Anyways, those are my personal headcanons about Craig's closest friendships.
> 
> At the end of TweekxCraig, we see Token's reaction, and he appears to be sort of shocked. I think that he, like a lot of the other boys in their class, was just. So thrown by this revelation that it took him some time to come to terms with it. Like he said, he, Craig, and Clyde had been best friends since they were preschoolers, and he'd never thought that Craig might be gay. I read this meta once that said that Craig took so long to come to terms with it in the episode because of who the adults were in South Park that were gay, and what he "knew" a gay person was like, and he couldn't reconcile that with himself until he'd given it some thought, and talked with his dad. Well, Craig isn't the only person who had these preconceived notions, and I think it would take his friends some time to reconcile it by themselves, too. It took a few episodes before we saw Token hanging out with Craig again, even in the background; I think Token just needed to realize that Craig was still Craig and Tweek was still Tweek before he could accept it.
> 
> Clyde took no time at all to accept it, because Clyde is a naive goofball.
> 
> Anyways, before my end notes get longer than the chapter, I'm gonna wrap this up. Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed this. Next chapter is going to be Craig trying to find a way to pass the time between making plans and actually going to plans, because Craig is not as patient as he likes to think he is. It'll be out next Sunday as usual.
> 
> I hope y'all have a good Christmas if that's what you're into, and I'll see you next week. :D


	4. The Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Waiting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
> 
> _Oh baby don't it feel like heaven right now_  
>  _Don't it feel like somethin' from a dream_  
>  _Yeah I've never known nothing quite like this_  
>  _Don't it feel like tonight might never be again_  
>  _Baby, we know better than to try and pretend_  
>  _Baby no one could have ever told me 'bout this_  
>  _I said yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah_
> 
> _The waiting is the hardest part_  
>  _Every day you see one more card_  
>  _You take it on faith, you take it to the heart_  
>  _The waiting is the hardest part_

Craig regretted cleaning his apartment the night before when he got home and realized he had five hours to wait and nothing to do. He swept and mopped in his kitchen, and then did the bathroom floor for good measure, but that only took half an hour. Kenny took off to run some errands, and Craig realized too late that he should have tagged along when Kenny invited him, because he had no idea what to do with himself to pass the remaining four and a half hours.

It wasn't so much that he was excited to see Tweek that had him so antsy, although it would be a lie if he said he wasn't itching for an explanation. It was more to do with the anticipation of having plans, of knowing that in a few hours he'd have to stop whatever he was doing and get going, so what was the point of getting himself focused on something only to be torn away from it later? The thought of sitting down to try to study or do his homework made something in him squirm restlessly, so he decided against that. He sat down on the couch and flipped through TV channels, shutting it off in frustration when he realized nothing good was on and he considered, not for the first time, getting a Netflix or a Hulu account. He debated it briefly before getting distracted thinking about Tweek fighting again.  The mystery was maddening. This afternoon was going to be a nightmare.

He glanced at his coffee table and saw the envelopes that Kenny had brought upstairs with him the night before. Sighing in relief, he decided he might as well get those bills taken care of. That would be a trip to the grocery store. And if he was going to go to the store anyways, he might as well do his grocery shopping, a chore usually reserved for weekday nights when the store was less crowded. He grabbed his list off the fridge, folded it, and put it in his pocket. His coat had been tossed carelessly onto the couch when he'd gotten home earlier, so he grabbed it and shoved his feet in his shoes, grabbed his bills off the coffee table, and put his arms through his coat sleeves as he headed downstairs, outside, to his car, and then to the grocery store.

 

* * *

 

The drive took ten minutes; Craig decided with disdain that everything in South Park was too close together, and it took no time to get anywhere. Usually that was a good thing, but he needed time to pass a little faster today.

His first order of business upon arriving at the store was to pay the bills. The line at the customer service desk wasn’t too long, and usually Craig would be thrilled that he wouldn’t have to wait. The line moved slowly, though, which was fortunate. He tried not to keep a close eye on the time, grateful every time he made himself wait to look at the clock behind the desk again only to realize when he finally looked that an entire minute had already passed.

Kenny liked to make fun of him for going to the store to pay his bills. He said it’s what old men did, and asked him if he was fifty years old, telling him to pay online like the rest of the millennials. Craig would just flip him off. It was a habit; it’s what his parents always did, and so it was what Craig did because that’s how he knew to do it.

Craig’s turn came after a typically agonizing ten minute wait that today felt like it could have taken longer. The woman behind the desk was an older lady, maybe in her late fifties, and she moved at a grueling pace of half a step an hour. The whole process of calling in both bills took about another ten minutes, and when she was done, she said, “Sorry about the wait, son. You’re all set.”

Craig, who had never in his life been happier about having to wait for anything, just said, “Thanks,” and took his receipts. Then he grabbed a cart and pulled out his list.

He didn’t really need much. Some soda. Toothpaste. Whatever he thought he might want for dinner that week. He grabbed ground beef and stuff to make tacos, figuring he could invite Clyde, Token and Kenny over for dinner at some point. He grabbed frozen waffles, those looked good, and he always kept himself stocked up on frozen pizzas. The guinea pig at work was going to be with them for a couple more days for observation after its illness, so he grabbed some carrots to share with it.

He filed through every aisle under the guise of making sure he wasn’t forgetting something he’d need, but in all honesty was really just trying to pass the time. He was usually a very patient person, but when he was looking forward to something, he could never really sit down and do nothing, and he was really looking forward to getting an explanation for why Tweek was a badass all of a sudden. When that happened. Whatever else he might have missed in Tweek’s life since they last talked nine years ago.

He couldn’t explain his curiosity, not even to himself. The whole situation was just so odd, he thought as he perused the aisles. It had been nine years--going on ten--since he had last seen hide or hair of Tweek or his family, and then all of a sudden, he shows back up in the most uncharacteristic of ways. Fighting. Fighting very well. When did Tweek start doing that? How did he even realize he liked doing it? He’d never told Craig about it when they were kids, and Tweek used to tell him everything, so it had to have been during the last nine years. They’d been so close; even before they were forced into a relationship, Craig had considered Tweek one of his best friends, and they'd only grown closer as a result of being together. Maybe that was the reason he was so curious about Tweek now. Craig wasn’t one to let just anybody in; he had his core group of close friends, and at one point, a long time ago, Tweek had been one of them. And then, after Tweek disappeared from his life, Craig had never bothered to try to replace him. Maybe he was just trying to regain that equilibrium. Four was a good number; he had Clyde, Token, and Kenny, and Tweek would round it out.

Maybe. If he even wanted back in Craig’s life. Craig really wished he could remember why they’d ever broken up. It was killing him, not knowing.

By the time he finished his shopping, cashed out, got all his bags in his car and returned his cart all the way back to the store, forty five minutes had passed. Added to the twenty minutes he’d waited at customer service, and he still had three and a half hours until he and Kenny would even leave to go to Benny’s. He groaned, dropping his forehead onto his steering wheel.

Today was taking too god damn long.

 

* * *

 

When he got home, got his groceries unloaded and put away, he still had another three full hours to kill. Just the thought of opening a textbook irritated him, so he put his coat and shoes back on and decided he’d go visit his parents. He was going to see them the next day anyways, but it wasn’t like they wouldn’t be happy to see him.

The drive from his apartment to his parents’ house was very short; he only lived a couple blocks away, and usually he’d walk, but he figured he could stay there until the last possible minute before driving back home just to keep himself busy.

He parked behind his mom’s car and cut the engine, flipping his dad off when he looked over to see who was there. To Craig’s amusement, his dad had his hands full, and looked distraught when he realized he couldn’t return the gesture.

“The hell’re you doing here?” Thomas Tucker asked his son from his place atop a ladder, his hands full of plastic spider webbing. Craig approached and held the ladder steady. His dad didn’t need his help, but what the hell. He had nothing better to do.

“‘Hi, son, how are you? Nice to see you. Come on inside and get out of the cold,’” Craig replied, mimicking his father’s familiar intonation with his own flat, nasally spin.

“Well, yeah, of course it’s nice to see you, Craig, but what the hell are you doing here? You never stop by on Saturdays,” Thomas said.

Craig shrugged. “I have plans in a couple hours, but I’m bored now. I was looking for something to do, so I figured I’d stop by.”

“Don’t you usually clean and run errands on Saturdays? Study or do homework or something?”

“Already got that all done,” Craig said. “And I couldn’t focus on a textbook if I tried. I can leave if you want.”

“No, Craig, you know we’re always happy when you come over,” Thomas said, turning back to his Halloween decorations. “It’s just a surprise. It’s been a long time since you stopped by on a Saturday.” Then he pointed down on the ground and said, “Hand me those hooks, would you, son?”

Craig passed up the pack of decoration hooks, holding the ladder as his dad bent down to grab them. “Thanks,” he said. “My ladder’s pretty steady. If you want to make yourself useful, you could put some of that spider web on the bushes down there.”

Craig shrugged and let go of the ladder. There were a few bags of the fake webs on the ground, so Craig opened one up and started trying to untangle it.

“The fuck...?” Craig muttered, unable to find an edge anywhere.

Thomas smirked from on top of the ladder. “Pain in the ass, isn’t it?” he said. “It doesn’t really have an edge. Just pinch some of it and start from there.”

Craig did as he was told and threaded the webbing through the bush’s branches, pulling and stretching it around the sides and over the top. He and his dad worked in silence for a while, Thomas occasionally asking Craig to hand him something from the ground so he wouldn't have to climb up and down the ladder. It took a few minutes for Craig to figure out how to get the web to stay attached to the branches; every time he thought it had been successfully fixed, he would stretch it out some and it would fall off, and Craig would grumble and curse at it, his dad smirking unhelpfully. Craig had just successfully gotten it to stick when Thomas' curiosity finally got the better of him.

“So, you got a date tonight or something?” Thomas asked.

Craig looked at him with alarm. “What? No!”

Thomas raised his hands defensively and said, “Sorry, jeez. I just figured you must be excited about whatever you’ve got going on later. You said you couldn’t focus on your schoolwork. You’re not usually so restless.”

“Oh,” Craig said, turning back to his project. “No, it’s not a date. I was out with Clyde, Token, and Kenny last night and we, uh.” He paused for a second, remembering that he should probably edit the story a little. His parents and Tweek’s parents were still sort of friends, and he didn’t want Tweek to get in trouble. “We ran into Tweek.”

“Tweek?” That got Thomas’ attention, and he was so quick to turn towards Craig that the ladder wobbled a little, and he grabbed onto the gutter to steady himself.

Craig already regretted bringing it up. “Yeah, Tweek,” he said, finishing up the first of the bushes and starting on the second. “Well, we saw him, but we didn’t get the chance to talk to him. So me and Kenny stopped by the coffee place this morning and asked him if he’d want to get dinner tonight so we could catch up.”

“And you’re looking forward to it,” Thomas said, turning back to his project with a smile that he was failing miserably to hide.

Craig just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I am. It’s nice to reconnect with old friends.”

Thomas muttered something under his breath, but said, “Nothing!” when Craig asked him to repeat himself.

They dropped the subject and the conversation after that, only talking when they had to move to put decorations somewhere else around the house, but Thomas looked inordinately pleased when he finished up and climbed down the ladder, much more than successfully putting up Halloween decorations probably warranted.

“Here, I got this big plastic spider around here somewhere,” he said, looking around the yard. Craig saw it over by the driveway and grabbed it.

“Thanks,” Thomas said, then wove its legs into the webbing.

The finished product looked pretty good. It wasn’t scary--the spider was obviously fake--but the webs looked pretty convincing, spanning the entire width of the front of the house, covering the garage door, trailing out from the bushes that Craig’s mom lovingly tended to (humming a song that Craig vaguely remembered but couldn’t place as she did so) and staked into the ground in front of them, and it would all look even better after it got dark.

“Not bad, Tucker,” Thomas said to his son, dropping a hand on his shoulder and shaking it.

“Not bad,” Craig agreed.

“Now come on inside. Your mom’s gonna be pissed if you don’t come in and say hello.”

 

* * *

 

Craig’s mom was in the kitchen, baking loaves of bread.

“Oh, hi, sweetie,” Laura said, holding her doughy hands carefully away and pressing a kiss to her son’s forehead. “You’re here early. Family dinner’s not until tomorrow.”

“He’s got a date tonight and he was trying to pass the time,” Thomas said.

Craig rolled his eyes. “It’s not a date,” he told his mom, sitting down at the table. “I’m going to get dinner with Kenny and Tweek.”

“Oh, wow,” Laura said, moving back to her dough. Craig wanted to applaud her efforts to seem nonchalant; it was almost convincing. “Haven’t heard you talk about Tweek in a while.”

“I haven’t seen him in a while,” Craig said. “But I was out with the guys last night and we saw him, so me and Kenny stopped by their coffee place this morning and asked him to come out with us so we could catch up.”

“Oh,” Laura said, pressing and rolling the dough. “Well, that’ll be nice. You boys used to be so close.”

Craig just hummed noncommittally. “Where’s Trish?” he asked, eager to get his parents off the subject of Tweek.

“Oh, she’s out doing something with her girlfriends, I think,” Laura said.

“She’s not at work?” Thomas asked.

“I didn’t think so. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well then, what in the hell did she take my car for?”

“Karen doesn’t drive, and Lucy’s parents are out of town this weekend,” Laura said, her voice getting tense. Craig rolled his eyes and got comfortable in his chair. He knew from years of experience what was going to happen next, and his best option was to get comfortable and settle in for the show.

“So they gotta take my car? It’s a nice day. They can walk,” Thomas grumbled.

“It’s a nice day for you, you big ogre,” Laura said. “The rest of us can feel the cold.”

“It’s early October!”

“It’s still cold, Thomas!”

“So put a jacket on!”

Craig stood up and went to the pantry, rooting around for the box of microwavable popcorn he knew his mother kept stocked. As his parents sniped back and forth, he put a bag in the microwave and waited, pulling it out before it could burn. He popped the bag open and sat down in his chair, grabbing a handful and tuning back in.

“Well maybe if you’d have cleaned out the garage like I asked you to three months ago, maybe we could put your car in there!” Laura was shouting.

“Do I look like I’m made of time to you? Huh? And when did you want me to get the Halloween decorations put up? The gutters clean? The lawn raked? The grass cut?”

“I think you can spare a couple hours on a Sunday instead of watching the football reruns all day long!”

“It’s not reruns if you’re watching it for the first time! But I can’t watch the games during the week because SOMEBODY has to watch The Voice every night!”

“The Voice isn’t even ON anymore, Thomas!”

“Well, whatever you’re watching, then! I don’t know!”

“Well then, why don’t we ask your mother to take her TV that’s sitting in storage? She’s not even using it! We can put it in our room, and I can watch my shows in there!”

“Do YOU want to ask my mom? ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t. ‘Thomas, you cheapskate, just buy a new one, blah blah blah!’” Thomas said, waving his arms around sardonically, trying and failing to make his voice sound like an old woman’s.

Craig pulled out his phone and looked at the time. It was miraculously twenty after four already. He hadn’t even noticed the time passing. He stood up and put his empty bag of popcorn in the garbage.

“I gotta get going,” Craig said, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair where he’d left it. His parents immediately stopped their bickering and looked at him.

“Oh, okay, honey,” Laura said, wiping more dough off her hands and giving him another kiss, this time on his cheek. “Have fun with Tweek and Kenny. We’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.”

“Okay,” Craig said.

“Yeah, have fun, sport,” Thomas said, grabbing the newspaper off the table now that he and Laura were done with their argument.

“Yeah,” Craig said. “See you tomorrow.”

As Craig headed toward the door and started putting his shoes on, he heard his dad ask his mom what she wanted to do for dinner. It was as if they hadn’t just been fighting only moments before, but that’s how they always were. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was annoying, but Craig knew that they were never actually mad at each other, not when they were like that. It was when they were silent with each other that Craig knew they were actually mad.

He drove back home in near silence, the car radio turned mostly down. It was so quiet, Craig couldn’t even tell what was playing. He pulled into his apartment’s lot only five minutes later, got upstairs, and took off his coat, thinking he’d grab a glass of water before he left when Kenny texted him.

_"Y_ _ou r_ _eady to go?_ ”

Craig texted back, “ _Yeah, be right down,_ ” then he put his coat back on and walked back out the door, locking it behind him as he went.

 

* * *

 

“Where were you?” Kenny asked when Craig met him at his door. Craig waited for him to lock it, then answered him as they made their way down the stairs.

“I went to the store and paid my bills, grabbed some groceries. Then I stopped by my parent’s place,” Craig said.

“On a Saturday?” Kenny asked.

“Yes, on a Saturday,” Craig said, wondering if he was really such a poor son that this came as such a surprise to everybody.

“Did you tell them we’re going to meet up with Tweek?” Kenny asked.

Craig nodded. “Yeah. My mom was calm about it, but my dad kept saying it was a date.”

Kenny snickered, unlocking his truck. “Oh yeah. And I’m your chaperone.” Craig chuckled, and Kenny continued, “Were they excited?”

“I don’t know. I guess so,” he said, shrugging and pulling on his seatbelt. “I don’t know about my mom, but I know my dad’s lowkey been hoping we’d get back together someday ever since we stopped being together, so probably.” He scoffed.

“Well,” Kenny said, driving them out of the parking lot. “I think he’d be excited if you ever got together with anybody.”

Craig’s only response to that was another shrug, and a “Maybe.”

Kenny was quiet for a minute as he drove, carefully watching the road, and then he said, “Can I ask you something, Craig?”

“Sure.”

“Why haven’t you ever gotten together with anybody?” Kenny asked. “Like, sure, it’s South Park, there’s maybe two other gay kids besides you and Tweek in town, so high school was out, but haven't you met other gay guys in college?”

Craig thought for a moment, and said, “I think there’s one in my history class. I can’t tell. He might just be a hipster.”

Kenny was silent for a minute, then sighed. “I don’t know why I was expecting anything else.”

Craig huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know how you could have forgotten that I’m as antisocial as it is possible to be, dude.”

“Yeah. That was my bad,” Kenny said, laughing. “God damn, you’re going to be alone forever, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, but Craig replied anyways. “Probably,” he said, genuinely nonchalant. “And that’s just fine by me.”

Kenny paused again, then asked, “Really?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. Really?” he repeated, emphasizing. “You would really want to be alone your whole life? That sounds so shitty to me. You really want that?”

Craig shifted in his seat uncomfortably, unsure of how to answer the question. Kenny, for as smart as he was, as insightful as he was, and for how much Craig did genuinely enjoy having him as a friend, had a way of cutting through Craig’s shit and asking him questions that made him really stop and examine himself, and he hated that. For the most part, he liked to think he was exactly who he seemed to be; he didn’t put on masks for people, didn’t alter himself to be acceptable to others. He was blunt and honest and logical, and if someone didn’t like it, well. That was fine. They didn’t have to. But there were parts of himself he didn’t really like to dwell on for very long. Emotional parts he didn’t care to examine. Feelings were confusing and didn’t make sense and it was impossible to tell them apart sometimes, so he liked to forget that he had them.

Kenny really liked to keep him from ignoring them, because Kenny was a dick like that.

“I mean,” Craig finally started. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d care if I was.”

“Okay,” Kenny said. “But is that what you _want_ ? Would you _prefer_ to be alone, or would you settle for it because it’s easier?”

“Jesus, dude,” Craig sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “Wouldn’t it make sense for me to prefer what’s easier?”

“It would, but things don’t always make sense, dude,” Kenny said. “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm over this, Craig. You’re allowed to be alone if that’s what you actually want. But sometimes the things you want aren’t easy, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Craig looked out the window and tried to process this. He liked his solitude; that was why he had moved out in the first place. Sure, he'd had his room, but even in his room, he could always hear his family, moving or talking somewhere else in the house, and they could and did come into his room whenever they wanted. Having his own apartment was living the dream. Sometimes he could hear his neighbors, but that was different; they were strangers, and they wouldn’t bother him. And yeah, Kenny would barge right in sometimes, but if Craig told him to leave, he’d leave, giving Craig only a little shit for it.

Sometimes when he was bored, he sought out company. Like today. Sometimes he needed to get out and see someone that wasn’t his own reflection in the mirror. But that was always on his terms. And that was what he needed; to be able to control who he saw, and when, and for how long. Anything more than what he needed seemed like too much, and he would get frustrated and snippy.

But if it were someone he was with? Romantically? He didn’t know. He didn’t exactly have a whole lot of experience to draw from, and none at all as an adult.

“I think....” Craig started. Kenny stayed silent and let Craig work out what he was trying to say in his own time. “I think it would depend.”

“On what?” Kenny asked when Craig took too long to elaborate.

“I don’t know. A lot of things,” Craig said, wishing Kenny would just drop the subject.

“Like what?”

Craig frowned. “The person, I guess. How much they’re able to respect my... I don’t know. My space.”

Kenny snorted. “Craig, you’re my buddy, but you’re a fucking dumbass sometimes.” Craig flipped him off, but Kenny ignored it. “That’s how it works, dude. For everybody. You’re not the only person who needs time alone. Everybody does. And every single person in a relationship winds up having to navigate the compatibility of the person they’re with with their own needs. That’s what dating’s all about, dude. That’s why people don’t get married to strangers anymore.”

“Oh,” Craig said, feeling kind of stupid. Kenny had a way of doing that to him when it came to discussions like these.

“You’re allowed to need space,” Kenny said. “You don’t have to give that up to be with somebody. You just need to find the person who can respect that, or maybe someone who doesn’t infringe on that.”

Craig snorted. “Everybody infringes on my alone time.”

Kenny just shrugged. “You never know, dude,” he said vaguely. “People will surprise you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I got it out of my system. [Craig's Mom's Bushes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHaLKWItMCs). Only joke about that I'm going to make in this fic, I promise.
> 
> Anyways, I think we can all relate to this. Craig is hells of impatient because he wants an explanation for why Tweek is such a badass now. He also is just genuinely excited to see Tweek again. Craig is an unreliable narrator. We all need to keep this in mind as we progress. 
> 
> Kenny knows so much, and cannot wait to reveal his knowledge. But Kenny is hells of patient, and that's a good thing, or else he'd probably just mash Craig and Tweek's faces together and say, "NOW KISS." It's not that he ships them necessarily (although I think of all the kids, Kenny would have the best understanding of Tweek and Craig's relationship and why it works as well as it does) so much that Kenny is a fatalist, and likes to help the universe get to where it needs to go. I intend to go over Kenny's role in this fic much more thoroughly in the Kenny spinoff I write. I'm very excited to start that eventually.
> 
> Anyways, Happy New Year! Hope 2018 manages to be just a little less shitty for all of us. Fingers crossed.


	5. Moving in Stereo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Moving in Stereo"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8RT9yAzYXE) by The Cars.
> 
> _It's so tough to get up_  
>  _It's so tough_  
>  _It's so tough to live up_  
>  _It's so tough on you_
> 
> _Life's the same, I'm moving in stereo_  
>  _Life's the same except for my shoes_  
>  _Life's the same, you're shakin' like tremolo_  
>  _Life's the same, it's all inside you_

Benny’s was located one town away from South Park. It was one of the favorite hangout spots for teenagers from all over Park County, but at five o’clock on a Saturday, the clientele tended more towards families with young children or older couples. Craig felt a step out of place among them, but Kenny didn’t seem to care, and Tweek was chatting with the hostess, who seemed to know him.

“All right, honey, your table is right this way,” she said, grabbing their menus and leading them to a booth in the furthest corner from the door. When they all were seated, she asked Craig and Kenny, “Can I get you boys something to drink?”

“Dr. Pepper,” Craig said, and Kenny asked for Pepsi.

“I’ll be right back, then,” she said.

“She didn’t ask if you wanted a drink,” Craig said to Tweek.

He just shook his head. “She knows. Some of us, uh, come here after the fights on Friday every week, and she’s always working.”

Sure enough, only a few minutes later, she came back with a glass of water, a glass of Pepsi, and a mug of coffee.

“Thanks, Miriam,” Tweek said, cupping his mug in his hands and pulling it closer to him.

“No problem, sweetie,” she said fondly. “One of the waitresses will be over in a minute.”

“Thank you,” they all said, and then Kenny turned to Tweek, who seemed to brace himself.

“So what’s up, Tweek?” Kenny asked. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has,” Tweek said vaguely, staring into his coffee. Craig noticed that his grip on his mug was very tight. He could only wonder what Tweek was thinking. “And not much. Work. School. Erk! Kickboxing. Just living my life.”

Kenny nodded. “And fighting in an illegal underground fighting league.”

Tweek twitched uncomfortably, and said, “It’s not--they--urgh. It’s not a league. It’s a club. Chris is always really specific about that.”

“Sorry. An illegal underground fighting club.”

Tweek nodded. “Yeah. That’s... yeah.”

Kenny had just opened his mouth to say something else when the waitress showed up at the table. She asked if they were ready to order, and they all exchanged glances before deciding they were. Kenny ordered a cheeseburger, Tweek ordered a grilled chicken salad, and Craig ordered french fries.

“Dude, you have to get food. Like. Dinner,” Kenny said, raising an eyebrow at him after the waitress walked away.

“I ate some popcorn at my parents’ house,” Craig said. “Plus, I’ve got plenty of free food at home.”

Deciding against arguing with him like he usually would in favor of interrogating his new target, Kenny just shook his head and turned back to Tweek. “So how’d you get involved with all that, anyways?” he asked curiously. “The club, I mean.”

Tweek took a deep breath and exhaled, looking away. “I’ve been taking kickboxing for a--hmm--a long time now,” he said, hurried and quiet. “Years. And one of my friends from my class invited me to check it out ‘cause he was a member, so I went to watch and it seemed like fun, so I joined.”

“Kickboxing,” Kenny said, shaking his head. “That’s crazy, dude. How’d you even get into something like that?”

Tweek just smiled. “Remember when we were in third grade, and you and--erk--Cartman and Stan and Kyle got me and Craig to fight each other?”

Kenny just laughed, and said, “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, Stan and Kyle had Stan’s uncle teach me to box, and then me and Craig fought and that was it,” Tweek said. He was a little calmer now that they weren’t talking about the illegal aspects of his hobby, but he still wasn’t making eye contact, and he was still clutching his mug for dear life. “I put the gloves somewhere in my room and--and forgot all about it. And then one day I was trying to clean my room and I came across the gloves again. So I put them on and was goofing around, and it was really fun, so I kept doing it. Well, when I started being homeschooled, I--I had to do some sort of physical activity to make up for not doing P.E., according to the school district, and when my parents asked me what I wanted to do, I figured, well. I had fun goofing around pretending to box. Maybe I’d. Ergh! Maybe I’d like actually boxing.”

“And you did,” Kenny said, smiling at him.

“Oh yeah,” Tweek said, nodding emphatically. “Even more than I thought I would.” Tweek pushed his mug around in his hands. “I, er. I don’t know if you know, Kenny, but I started homeschooling because I was too anxious in the middle school.”

Kenny nodded. “I thought it was something like that,” he admitted. Craig was tempted to raise an eyebrow, but fought the urge. He probably said that because it would make Tweek uncomfortable if he thought they’d been talking about him too much. Craig could forgive a little white lie for the sake of keeping Tweek comfortable.

“Well, starting homeschooling helped a lot with my anxiety,” Tweek said. “But it was still a problem. And all that anxiety kept me from getting sleep, and being sleep deprived always made the anxiety worse, and it was just this big cycle. So when I started boxing--and I did it four times a week at first, that’s. The gym I signed up at held classes four times a week and it cost the same whether you showed up for every class or only came once every month. But when I started boxing, I was so tired every night after class, I could actually sleep.”

Craig’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Kenny said, “That’s great, dude!”

“Yeah,” Tweek said, his mouth quirked in a half-grin. “The first time it happened I thought I was dying, but then it kept happening, and the pattern started to make sense, and I realized what it actually was. So I was getting to sleep a little more consistently, and that helped make me less anxious, and--nngh--and so I started taking a kickboxing class, and I liked that even better. So I was working out every day, and I ended up sleeping every day, and. Yeah. It helps a lot, and I love doing it, so,” he shrugged with finality, looking between Craig and Kenny.

“Well, that’s pretty cool, then,” Kenny said. “It’s not a perfect cure, though, right? You’re still kind of....”

“Yeah,” Tweek said, raising one shoulder. “It’s. I. I mean. There’s still... I’m still, like--” He stopped, looking frustrated. But he took a deep breath and continued. “I’m still mentally ill. That doesn’t go away just because I can sleep at night now. I’m twitchy, and--nngh--I’ll probably always be twitchy. I can’t control all the. The weird interjections. But sleeping and exercising and, like. I follow a diet now, so eating well and sleeping and exercising, it all helps me feel better. And I have to eat right or I feel sick in my class, and I have to go to class because I’m paying for it and it would stress me out to waste money like that, and I like going anyways, and then I have to sleep afterward because I’m tired, so. It’s a new cycle, and it helps a lot.”

“Do you see a therapist or anything?” Kenny asked. Craig was tempted to hit him for asking a question like that, but Tweek didn’t seem to mind. Actually, Craig was surprised that he was being so open about all of it. He never liked discussing what was wrong with him; he had told Craig once that he was ashamed of it, ashamed of how little control he had over himself. But here he was, calmly--or as calmly as Tweek could manage--discussing all of this with two people who were practically strangers. It was kind of jarring.

“Oh yeah,” Tweek said, nodding. “I’ve been seeing one since I was a kid. Dr. Norris.”

“Does he help at all?”

“She,” Tweek corrected. “And yeah, sort of. She gives me a lot of exercises I can do to try to calm down once I’m already worked up. Sometimes they help--nnh--sometimes they don’t.” He shrugged, and continued, “She had always suggested I try exercising and eating better, but before I started boxing, it was like. I couldn’t keep up a routine because I didn’t know how to structure any kind of workout. Now I can, and she says that she’s seen a lot of improvement.”

Kenny nodded. “Well, it’s great that you’re feeling better,” he said. “You must be proud of yourself.”

Tweek fiddled with his mug, looking sheepish. “I guess so,” he said quietly. “It’s just nice to be functional.”

“So, you said you’re in school?” Kenny asked. “Where do you go?”

“I go to Park County Community College,” Tweek said. “I’m studying business.”

“You do?” Craig asked, finally speaking up. “So do we.”

“We’ve never seen you on campus, though,” Kenny said. “I mean, we’re all studying different things, but I feel like we should have run into you at some point. The campus isn’t that big.”

“Oh, uh,” Tweek said, looking down at his coffee cup again. “I, uh. Still get anxious. Around too many people. So Dr. Norris arranged it with the school so that I could study at home. I still have to show up for tests and exams, but. I’m not really on campus that much.” He took a deep breath and apparently decided he was done being interviewed, because he looked back up at them with a tight smile and asked, “You guys go there too? What are you guys studying?”

“I’m taking English,” Kenny said. “I just applied to Boulder last week, and if I get in, I’ll take English and Philosophy, and then hopefully go to law school.”

“Oh, wow,” Tweek said, wide-eyed. “Wow, man. That’s really cool. I hope you get in.”

“Yeah, me too,” Kenny said, giving him a half smile.

“I didn’t know you were interested in that kind of thing,” Tweek said. “What would you focus on?”

“Criminal law,” he said. “With a bit of luck, I’d like to be a prosecutor. Putting people in jail who deserve to be there is kind of the work of my life.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tweek said with dawning comprehension. “I remember that. You were Mysterion when we were kids. You were always really into that.”

“Ahaha,” Kenny said, rubbing the back of his neck. If Craig were paying any attention to Kenny at all, he’d think Kenny was nervous. “Yeah, I was. It was fun, when we were kids. And it definitely gave me a good idea of what sort of work I’d want to do as an adult, so.”

“Well, that’s cool. Good luck, man,” Tweek said cheerfully. Then he turned to Craig and asked, “What about you, Craig? What are you studying?”

“Biology,” Craig said. “I want to be a vet.”

“I figured it would be something like that,” Tweek said, grinning. He rested his chin on his hand and said, “That or an astronaut.”

Craig nodded. “It came down to that,” Craig said. “But they’re really particular about who they send into space. It’d suck to do all that work and then get screwed over ‘cause someone else kissed enough ass to get to go. At least being a vet, you’ve got a better chance of doing what you want to do. Plus, biology is way more interesting than physics.”

“Where are you planning to go after community college?”

Craig shrugged. “For undergrad, I could go anywhere and take biology. For grad school, I’d go to CSU, they’ve got a veterinary medicine program.”

“That’s in Fort Collins, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, cool,” Tweek said.

“What about you, dude?” Kenny asked. “Planning to transfer anywhere after this?”

Tweek pursed his lips and looked away. “I don’t know. That’s... that’s kind of dependent on a lot of things. I’d like to. But. I don’t. Erk! I don’t know.”

The waitress chose that moment to show up with their food. Craig was so invested in the conversation, he forgot that they had come here to eat, and was pleasantly surprised when he remembered he ordered fries.

Once they got settled with their plates, and after the waitress asked if they needed any refills, they returned to their conversation.

“So, you’ll be taking over Tweek Bros., then?” Kenny asked.

Tweek nodded. “Yeah. It’s really cool, actually. I mean, I’ve spent my whole life learning about the business, but there was a lot of it I never knew about. And my dad’s been really open to hearing my ideas. We’re actually working together now to figure out if there’s any way we can renovate the back room to include a kitchen and start preparing food in-home rather than have it shipped in from another bakery every day.”

“Oh, sweet, dude!” Kenny said. “Would you be the baker, then?”

“Well, me and my mom, for now,” Tweek said. “My dad wants to look into hiring somebody to do it just because that would be a lot of work for us to do every day.”

Craig dropped the fry he was holding at that. “Wait, what?”

“I know, right?” Tweek said, looking at Craig with equal shock.

“Uh...?” Kenny asked. “What’s the big deal?”

“Tweek Bros. has never hired someone who wasn’t family,” Craig told him.

“Ever since my great-grandfather opened it,” Tweek added. “It’s always been family owned and family run. My dad came close to hiring someone a few times when I was young, because my grandparents passed away only two years after I was born, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. But I mean. Now we’re going to have to, and my dad doesn’t want to leave me with that responsibility.”

Craig raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?” he asked, his tone a bit darker than it probably should have been.

Tweek picked up on it immediately. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said wryly. “But it’s really not like that. It’s not, like. He’s. Ngh. It’s not that he thinks I can’t handle it because it’s me. It’s just because I’m so young. I wouldn’t know the first thing about being somebody’s boss. At least if he does it, he can show me what to do.”

“Oh,” Craig said. The annoyance at Tweek’s dad, which had been a constant feature of his childhood, simmered back down to the general dislike he’d always harbored for the man.

“And besides, I’d prefer he do it anyways,” Tweek said. “If it comes down to it, I’ll let him decide who to leave the shop to when I retire, too. That’s--that’s too much pressure. I wouldn’t want to make that choice.”

Kenny didn’t seem to have anything to say to that, and Craig was not a conversationalist, so, after a bite of his salad, Tweek asked, “So how’s Trish doing? And Karen and Kevin?”

“Karen and Kevin are good,” Kenny said. “Kevin is working, and Karen is starting to look at colleges.”

“Trish, too,” Craig said.

“They’re graduating this year, right?”

“Yeah,” Craig said. “Trish is thinking she might do a gap year, though. She has no idea what she wants to go to school for.”

“What do your parents think?” Tweek asked.

Craig shrugged. “They’re just glad she wants to go to college. They don’t care when she does it.”

Tweek laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like them.”

“Grandma thinks she should look into cosmetology, because Trish is really good at doing makeup apparently, but she has no interest in it,” Craig told him. “If it’s not on her and it’s not on her friends, she doesn’t give a shit.”

“She did Karen’s junior prom makeup, right?” Kenny asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then Grandma Tucker’s not wrong. Karen looked amazing. Like. She’s adorable, she always looks great, but this was like, runway model kinds of professional,” Kenny said.

“How is Grandma Tucker doing?” Tweek asked, grinning into his salad.

Craig snorted. “Still kicking, somehow. But she’s going to live forever, on spite and stubbornness alone.”

“I always liked her,” Tweek said. “She terrified me, and probably still would, but she was really funny.”

“Yeah, she’s all right,” Craig agreed. “I don’t see her much because the retirement home she lives in does some sort of old person game night on Sundays, but I hear she’s doing pretty good.”

“You can’t see her another day of the week?” Tweek asked. “Does she stop over whenever you’re not at home or something?”

“I moved out,” Craig said. “I live by myself.”

“We’re neighbors,” Kenny piped up. “He lives one floor above me.”

“Oh, really?” Tweek asked, looking between the two of them. “When did that happen?”

“I was out the day I turned eighteen,” Kenny said. “Had the papers all drawn up and everything.”

“And I was only a couple months after my eighteenth birthday,” Craig said.

“You guys live in your own apartments in the same building?” Tweek asked. “Why not just move in together and share the rent?”

Craig and Kenny looked at each other bemusedly, then turned back to Tweek and, in perfect unison, said, “I need my space.”

Then they looked at each other again in surprise. Tweek chuckled, and said, “Okay. Fair enough.” He took another bite of his salad and asked, “So what do you two do now?”

“I’m a file clerk at the county DA’s office,” Kenny said. “It sounds fancy, but I’m basically a cross between a receptionist and an errand boy. It’s not glamorous, but it pays better than you’d think, and they’re totally willing to work around my school schedule. And on the weekends, I sometimes help out at my uncle’s garage.”

“I’m a receptionist at a vet’s office,” Craig said. “And sometimes I play with the animals and they pay me for it.”

Tweek snorted, crinkling his nose. “Living the dream.”

“Damn straight.”

 

* * *

 

They continued making small talk for a while afterward, even after they had all finished their food. Now that they had moved away from more sensitive topics, Craig felt a lot more comfortable getting involved without worrying he was going to cross a line. He had a tendency to step on people’s toes without meaning to, so sensitive topics were better left to Kenny, who was able to navigate them a lot easier. Tweek, on his part, twitched less and less, until he stopped entirely; it seemed he was much more comfortable talking about unimportant things, so Craig tried his best to keep the topics light, steering the conversation back whenever Kenny tried to ask more serious questions.

Craig lost all track of time, talking to Tweek. When Tweek pulled out his phone and declared he had to get going to meet his trainer, Craig looked at his own phone and was shocked to find that they had been there for two hours. It felt like no time had passed at all.

They asked for their bills and settled them, then finally stood up and started putting on their coats.

“Well, Tweek, it was really nice seeing you again, dude,” Kenny said as they headed out the door.

“Yeah, you guys, too,” Tweek said.

“You still have my number, right?” Kenny asked.

Tweek nodded. “Yeah, I put it in my phone once I had a minute earlier.”

“Cool,” Kenny said. “If you’re ever bored, you should hit one of us up. I might not be immediately available, but Craig has no life, so he’d probably be free to hang out.”

Craig flipped him off, but addressed Tweek. “Yeah, dude, do it.”

“That sounds good,” Tweek said. “But I don’t have your number, Craig.”

“Oh, yeah,” Craig said. He pulled out his phone and opened a new text. “What’s your number, dude?”

“279,” Tweek started.

“0499?” Craig finished, typing it into his contacts list.

He was still looking down at his phone, waiting for Tweek to confirm. When he didn’t answer after a long enough pause, he looked up. Kenny had turned away a little bit, and he had a hand over his mouth, but Craig could see the way his eyes were crinkled in the corners, obviously trying to hide a smile, and Tweek just looked at him oddly.

“You remember my number?” he asked. Craig had no idea what the tone of Tweek’s voice meant, but he could gather enough to know he should probably not have been able to remember it.

Craig just shrugged. He was a little embarrassed, but Tweek didn’t need to know that, and Kenny definitely didn't need to know that. “It’s not a hard number to remember.”

Tweek just stared at him for a second, looking like he was trying to work something out, then said, “Uh. Y-yeah. Yeah, that’s my number.”

“Cool,” Craig said, then typed “ _This is Craig._ ” into the body and sent it. He could hear the hum of it in Tweek’s coat pocket, but Tweek didn’t take it out to look at it, opting instead to stare resolutely at the ground, looking confused, or maybe a little lost. “So, now you have my number. You can text me if you want.”

“I will,” Tweek said. “Uh. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Yeah, see you,” Craig said, although after that, he was pretty sure he’d never see Tweek Tweak again. It was a shame; it really had been nice to see him.

 

* * *

 

The first few minutes of the drive home were silent. At first, Craig had resolved to ignore the smug, self-satisfied smirk on Kenny’s face, but eventually, it got to be too irritating, so he finally asked, “Dude. What?”

“What?” Kenny asked airily.

“You’re looking smug as shit right now. What?”

“I’m not smug,” Kenny laughed.

“Well, then, you look pretty damn proud of yourself.”

“I guess I am,” Kenny admitted. Calling him out on it only served to make him look more smug. Craig regretted even bringing it up. “That went even better than I’d hoped.”

“Why were you--” Craig started to ask, and then he shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. You’re not going to tell me, so I’m not going to bother asking.”

“It’s really nothing as insidious as I think you’re suspecting,” Kenny said. “Just. Things are falling into their proper places, and I barely had to do anything. I love when the universe does its own job.”

“Dude.”

“Don’t worry, Craig. You won’t remember we had this conversation.”

“What?”

 

* * *

 

When Craig woke up the next morning, he didn’t remember it, exactly as Kenny had promised. In his mind, they drove home, having the kind of forgettable conversation about nothing they’d had a million times before, and parted ways at Kenny’s door as usual. But when Kenny woke up the next morning, he did so with the renewed vigor and energy he had every time he came back to life, and planned his next few gentle nudges. A few for Craig, a few for Tweek, and a few more for the many, many other pies his fingers were buried in. Kenny was a busy guy, but he always made time for his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the triangle of "Can we stop at McDonalds," Craig is at the peak of "We have food at home," Tweek is at the peak of "*pulls in the drive through and orders a black coffee*," Clyde is at the peak of "MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!" and Kenny and Token are somewhere hovering around in the middle.
> 
> I don't like Tweek's parents, personally. I understand that a lot of their character comes from a place of comedy, and that's fine, but in a real world setting I know EXACTLY what kind of parents they'd be. I know people whose parents are just like that, and do not care for it. I think Craig wouldn't particularly care for them either. That's my own personal headcanon, anyway.
> 
> Kenny continues to be a Vague Yet Benevolent Interfering Agent. I really want to start writing his story. I'm very excited about that. I only get more excited with every passing chapter.
> 
> I hope y'all had some good holidays! Sorry about this chapter being posted so late tonight, my nephew's birthday party was today. Sitting in a room with a bunch of toddlers is not a new experience for me (I was a daycare worker), but being so out of practice at dealing with that many toddlers at a time makes the whole thing just. Sort of exhausting. 
> 
> Ah well. See y'all next Sunday! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	6. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Changes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPSu0vaNWA) by David Bowie.
> 
> _Turn and face the strange_   
>  _Changes_   
>  _There's gonna have to be a different man_   
>  _Time may change me_   
>  _But I can't trace time_

The following Monday found Craig walking tiredly but dutifully to class. It was chilly; the middle of October in South Park always was, but the biting, bitter wind from the weekend had subsided, and it settled into being kind of nice out. Craig drove himself to campus on Mondays; Kenny only had one class in the afternoon, and he worked, took an hour and a half to go to his class, and then went back to work, so Craig was on his own. But it was okay. He could forgive Kenny for abandoning him.

He tended to space out as he was walking, so he almost missed the newly familiar head of blonde hair walking, harried, ahead of him. Once he did notice, though, he was surprised, and started walking faster to catch up, suddenly uncharacteristically in the mood to interact.

“Hey, Tweek!” he shouted.

And immediately regretted it when Tweek jumped and screeched, his to-go cup of coffee arching out of his hands and up into the air before clattering back to the ground where Tweek had once been standing. Tweek had taken off running, only looking back over his shoulder once, carefully, to see if he was being pursued. When he saw Craig frozen in place, he came to an abrupt halt, hesitated for a minute, then turned around and started walking back, his head resolutely hung low, the tips of his ears tinging pink.

“Oh. Uh. H-hi, Craig,” he said when he was close enough to be in a conversational range. He stooped down to pick up his coffee cup, looking put out when he saw the lid had broken off and his coffee had all spilled all over the ground. Sighing, he put the lid back on and held it down at his side. “What’s--nnrgh--what’s up?”

“Uh. Not much,” Craig said, still frozen in place. Tweek seemed even twitchier than he had been over the weekend, and Craig felt bad for startling him. “Sorry about that. And, uh. Your coffee.”

Tweek shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.” He looked down at his broken cup and said, “And I didn’t really need this anyways. I’m trying to cut down on it.”

“Oh. Well. Still. Sorry.”

“It’s all right, man. It happens,” Tweek said. Then he gestured with his head that they start walking toward campus, and Craig followed him.

“So, what are you doing here?” Craig asked. “I thought you said you took your classes at home?”

“I have a test in my accounting class,” Tweek explained. “I still have to take those in person.”

“Oh, right,” Craig said.

They fell into an awkward silence after that; without Kenny there to act as a buffer, Craig realized, not for the first time, what a remarkably terrible conversationalist he was. He’d always known that he was, and he accepted it (sometimes even boasted it), but now, trying and failing to talk to Tweek, it just felt weird. Wrong somehow. Craig fished for something to say--anything, really, he wouldn’t be picky--and he had just started speaking when Tweek tried to say something too.

“Oh, um. Sorry. Go ahead,” Tweek said.

“No, no, you go,” Craig said.

“Okay. Uh. This is my building,” Tweek said, gesturing to the building to their left. “So, um.”

“Oh, well, never mind then,” Craig said. “Good luck on your test.”

“Ngh! Thanks,” he said, then started walking toward the building. “I’ll see you around, Craig.”

“Yeah, see you,” Craig replied, then started walking towards his own class, vaguely disappointed by the whole exchange.

He had maybe taken a total of five steps before he heard, “Hey, Craig!”

He turned back to see Tweek walking quickly back to his side. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I meant to text you yesterday, but I was busy studying for my test, and I had to work, and I was training and stuff,” Tweek said, looking kind of cagey, not meeting Craig’s eye. “But, uh. Do you think you’ll come see more of the fights?”

Craig shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. It was pretty cool.”

Tweek smiled. “Cool. Well, if you do, text me and let me know? I can keep an eye out for you, and you can come see where we all hang out, if you want.”

“Yeah, okay,” Craig said. “That’d be... ” he paused for a second, trying to find another word, but couldn’t think of one that wasn’t too emotive or too insincere, and so settled on repeating, “Cool.”

Tweek’s lips quirked into a half smile, very obviously aware of what had just happened. “All right. Well. Cool. I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yeah. Bye. Good luck,” Craig said, and then waited, watching as Tweek took a few steps away, making sure he wasn’t going to be called back again, before heading to his own class.

 

* * *

 

He had a break for half an hour between his first class and his second one. He briefly considered going for a walk around campus, seeing if he would run into Tweek again, but decided against it. Tweek might start to think he was stalking him or something, and he’d rather not upset him twice in one day. Instead, he sat on a bench outside his second class, pulling out his phone and sending Kenny a text.

_ “ Guess who I just ran into on campus. ” _

_ “ Tweek? _ _”_ Kenny sent back only a minute later. He wasn’t allowed to use his phone at work, but he did anyways.

_ “ Yup. ” _

_ “ Figured. What was he doing there? ” _

“ _ He had a test today. Guess he still has to show up for those. _ ”

_ “ He told us that on Saturday, dumbass, _ _”_ Kenny sent back. Craig imagined that Kenny was laughing at him. Not for the first time, he wished that his phone had a middle finger emoji. 

_ “ Yeah. I remembered that after he told me. ” _

_ “ Oh, you actually talked to him? ” _

_ “ Yeah. I saw him walking in from the parking lot, so we talked for a few minutes. He asked me if I was planning to go to any more fights. ” _

_ “ Are you? ” _

_ “ I don’t know. I wasn’t, but it kind of seems like he wants us to. ” _

_ “ Then, are you going to? ” _

Craig paused for a minute, deciding. _“_ _ I guess so. They’re pretty cool. ” _

_ “ Nothing to do with Tweek, though, right? Just the fights are pretty cool. ” _

_ “ Well, no. If Tweek didn’t want us to go, I wouldn’t bother. ” _

_ “ I see. ” _

Craig didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Instead, he got up and started making his way toward his next class, but he felt his phone go off in his pocket a few steps later. 

_ “ Well, _ _”_ Kenny texted. _“_ _ I don’t have anything to do that early on Friday this week, so I’ll tag along if you want. ” _

_ “ Yeah, whatever, dude. If you want to. ” _

_ “ I can text Clyde and Token, see if they want to come? ” _

_ “ Sure, _ _”_ Craig responded. _“_ _ I gotta get to class though, so I’ll talk to you later. ” _

_ “ Cool. Later, dude. ” _

 

* * *

 

His biology class was his favorite class. All science classes were. There was something about learning the makeup of the world, knowing the orderliness of the process but the chaos of the findings that spoke to Craig. He loved it. He loved science.

As such, he always paid very close attention to his teacher. He never texted in class--even in high school--but today he had no other choice but to take his phone out and check it. It had almost not stopped vibrating since he sat down, and he was starting to think something might be wrong.

Then he saw that he had 46 new text messages and was just confused.

He opened his text folder and sighed in aggravation when he saw that every single one of them came from a group text with Kenny, Clyde, and Token, and as he looked at it, he saw that it had amassed another two messages.

He turned his phone right off and put it back in his pocket. His friends could wait until later.

 

* * *

 

After class, he had a few minutes to spare; since he wouldn’t be walking to work today, he figured he could at least make sure that the group text hadn’t completely filled his phone’s storage. Clyde was a multiple-texter, and was liable to have sent a hundred more messages in the hour Craig had had his phone shut off. He turned it back on and was annoyed when it re-alerted him to every single message, one at a time. Grunting in frustration, he put it back in his coat pocket and headed to his car.

By the time he got there, five minutes later, his phone had thankfully stopped alerting him. When he finally went to check it, the total message count was 62. Rolling his eyes, he opened the string and started reading.

Kenny had invited Clyde and Token to go to the fights with them again on Friday. Token declined; he had a meeting with his study group, and he went to school in Denver so he’d be back pretty late, probably not in time to make it. Clyde sent a couple of teasing messages about being such a rich kid that he would drive two hours to school every day and two hours back rather than just living out there. Token responded that it was only an hour and a half, and he wasn’t going to burden his parents with the rent on an apartment. Clyde went on to say that he had a date, so he didn’t want to commit to anything in case it went well. One of the messages was comprised entirely of winking emojis. Craig especially hated Clyde in that moment.

Kenny texted back that Tweek would be so disappointed. Token asked if they talked to him, and Kenny told him that he and Craig had dinner with him on Saturday. Clyde asked where his invite was (and sent another three texts just of crying and sad face emojis, and Craig’s hatred grew exponentially with each one), and Kenny said that he didn’t want to overwhelm Tweek with too many people. Token said that made sense, and Clyde just sent more crying emojis. Token asked how it went, and Kenny said it was fine, that Tweek seemed to be doing well, and that he’d seemed happy to see them. Clyde asked if he had been happy to see them or happy to see Craig. Kenny responded that the jury was out on that one. Craig, for his part, had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. 

From there, though, the three of them devolved into making teasing remarks about Craig and Tweek. They were destined to be together. The universe was pushing them back together. They were made for each other. They were going to get married and have a million beautiful babies together. Clyde asked Kenny if he thought it was possible; not the babies part, but if he had noticed any sort of spark of interest, and Kenny just sent a winking emoji. 

Clyde finally decided to ask Craig what he thought, and when Craig never responded, Clyde sent ten texts in a row repeating Craig’s name with varying amounts of vowels and capital letters. Eventually Token reminded him that Craig was in class, and Clyde sent first an “Oh,” then “Sorry, Craig,” and then “I forgot.”

Token sent a message stating that Craig was going to be pissed when he checked his phone and saw that he had so many texts. Kenny agreed, and Clyde apologized, then sent, “When you read this, Craig, just remember. This was all Kenny’s fault.”

Craig texted back, saying, “I hate all of you,” and then took a minute to figure out how to leave the group chat. That done, he pocketed his phone again and began his drive to work.

 

* * *

 

Craig was at his computer, filing email alerts for upcoming appointments, bored out of his mind. The guinea pig (whose name he finally learned was Crunchy, and who belonged to a five year old girl who lived a couple houses down from his parents) was relaxing in his lap, chowing down on the carrots Craig had brought with him, when Craig’s boss came in to see him.

“Hey, Craig,” Dr. Tompkins said, leaning around the door. “Barb tells me you’ve been helping out back there? With feeding and bandages and medicine and stuff.”

Craig grabbed another carrot and placed it on his lap. Crunchy was quick to snatch it up, burrowing herself back into his hat, hiding the carrot from view. Mostly, Craig was trying to avoid answering the question. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be doing that. The prerequisites for animal care were that you had to at least have an associates’ degree, and Craig was still in the process of getting one. He was supposed to stay at his desk, but the animals were a horrible distraction when he could hear them through the door. “Uh,” Craig said, fidgeting with his computer mouse. “Yeah. I have.”

Dr. Tompkins smiled at him. “It’s all right, Craig, you’re not in trouble. Did you hear about Mitchell?”

“That he’s leaving?” Craig asked. “Yeah, he told me last week.”

“Well,” Dr. Tompkins said. “With him gone, we’re going to be really short on coverage until we can get somebody to replace him.”

“Uh-oh,” Craig said, remembering the last time they’d had to hire somebody. Being such a small clinic in such a small, somewhat isolated town, it had been hard to find anybody who was qualified; it was three months before they had been able to fill the position, and that had been sort of on accident.

“Yeah, uh-oh,” she said. “Now, technically, you’re not supposed to be back there. But we’re kind of in dire straits, and we’re not going to have enough coverage until we can find someone, we just don’t have the resources. If I talk it over with your school, set it up like it’s an internship, do you think you’d be interested in the position?”

Craig could feel his jaw drop a little. “Yes. Yes, I’d be very interested.”

“Okay,” Dr. Tompkins said, nodding. “There are going to be some rules. You won’t be allowed to do anything without supervision, and Barb is going to be in charge of you. You do whatever she tells you, when she tells you.”

“That’s fine,” Craig said. This was the only job he’d ever had, and working in reception, he never really had a supervisor, but it couldn’t be that bad, and he liked Barb. “I can do that.”

“We’ll still be able to work around your school hours, but we might need to schedule you on Saturdays every so often. Would that be a problem?”

“No,” he replied. “My Saturdays are usually pretty clear.”

“All right,” Dr. Tompkins said with a smile. “Well. I’ll give your school a call, and I’ll let you know. If they tell me no, it’s a no go, but I wanted to clear it with you before making any phone calls.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Craig said, giving Crunchy another carrot when she nipped at his finger. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” she said, then left, shutting the door behind her.

Craig turned back to his computer screen, feeling much less bored than he had before.

 

* * *

 

He kept Crunchy on his lap until it was time to get ready to leave; he liked having her there, and it was going to be tough giving her back to her owner when she came to pick her up the next day. As he was placing her back in her cage, Barb came in from the kitchen, her arms full of containers of pet food. 

“Dr. Tompkins talk to you?” she asked. When Craig nodded, she said, “Good. I told her you’d be interested. She get it all straightened out?”

Craig shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s got to clear it with my school, and she hasn’t said anything to me since she brought it up.”

“Hm. Well, I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” Barb said simply. She started doling out food into bowls, and the eyes of every animal in the room were watching her closely. “Why don’t you start puttin’ these in the cages?” she asked, and Craig was quick to jump to it. “Mind Snowball, she’s a biter.”

Craig followed her instructions, and Barb served bowl after bowl of pet food in metered servings, and they kept silent, the only noise in the room being the crunching and lip-smacking coming from the cages.

“I think it’ll work out,” she said again. “So, mind tellin’ me what you’re so cheerful about?”

Craig looked at her blankly. “This is what I want to do,” he said, gesturing at all the cages.

“Well, yeah, I knew that,” Barb said, waving her hand dismissively. “But you been smilin’ since you came in today. Have a good weekend?”

“I was?” Craig asked.

Barb huffed out a laugh. “Well, smilin’ as much as you can be said to smile.”

“Oh,” Craig said. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Meet a nice boy?” Barb teased.

“Uh.”

She laughed at him. “I’m just pullin’ your leg, Craig, you don’t have to tell me. But I hope you did. You’re a good kid, and you deserve a nice boy.” She folded up the various bags of pet food, and Craig just watched her silently. “Well, anyways, I gotta get these kennels scrubbed. You run on home now. I’ll see you tomorrow, son. Have a good night.”

“You too,” Craig said, then went back to his office, logged out of his computer, grabbed his jacket and made his way home.

That had thrown him a little. Not that Barb knew he was gay; he wasn’t ashamed of it, and never hid it. He told her on his first day there, after she asked him if he had a girlfriend. No, what had thrown him was that he had been noticeably happy. He didn’t think that was something he really expressed, or even took note of himself. 

But he had had a good weekend. Seeing Tweek had been cool, and then he’d had dinner with his family on Sunday. They had asked him about how Tweek was, but didn’t press him, and that had been nice. Usually, any time he mentioned a new guy he knew about, even in passing, his parents were relentless about who this person was, what he was like, if Craig were interested. And his parents had always loved Tweek, so he’d been dreading a whole production at dinner. But they didn’t. It had been nice.

And then running into Tweek this morning. That had been awkward, but it was nice to see him nonetheless. And he had plans for Friday night now. That was cool, he guessed. 

Maybe he was happy earlier, and if he hadn’t been, then he certainly was now, with this new position actually working with animals hopefully all lined up for him. It felt like a step in the right direction, and after three years of stagnating, waiting to graduate, it was almost exciting. 

When he got to his car, he texted Clyde, Kenny, and Token, and invited them over for dinner. He felt like making tacos.

 

* * *

 

“Cheers,” Clyde said, raising his can of Dr. Pepper above the table. “To Craig’s promotion.”

“Cheers,” Kenny and Token said, raising their own cans. 

Craig joined in, but he said, “It’s not really a promotion. Technically, it’s a demotion, since I’ll be an intern and not a real employee.”

“But it’s a pay raise, right? Techs make more than receptionists,” Token pointed out.

“Dr. Tompkins didn’t say,” Craig said. “And I’m not going to fuck this all up by asking for it.”

“She’s nice, though,” Kenny said. “She’d probably give it to you.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Craig admitted. “I’m still not going to ask.”

“She’ll probably just do it anyways,” Clyde said, grabbing a tortilla and loading it up with meat and cheese. “She was a friend of my mom’s, and she still comes around sometimes to visit me and Dad, and that’s something she would do.”

Craig just shrugged, and started making his own taco. “Well, whatever,” he said. “I’m just glad to finally be working with the animals instead of sneaking around and petting them whenever she’s not in there.”

Kenny laughed. “One step closer, right?”

Craig nodded. He would have said something, but his mouth was full, and he wasn’t a slob.

Clyde was, though, and said, his mouth full of meat, cheese, and salsa, “Still a reason to celebrate, dude.”

“Yeah,” Craig said, his mouth finally clear. “Just as long as it works out.”

“Well, even if it doesn’t, we’ve still got a reason to celebrate,” Clyde said. He finally swallowed his food, waiting until he was done talking like some sort of barbarian.

“We do?” Craig asked, wondering what he’d missed.

“Of course we do,” Clyde said, grinning. “Tweek.”

Craig heaved out a sigh, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, okay, Clyde.”

“No, dude, not even anything to do with you,” Clyde said. Craig was stupid enough to believe he was being sincere.

“Oh. So what about Tweek?”

“No homo, but did he get hot or what?” Clyde asked, and Kenny shot Mountain Dew out his nose. Token, the traitor, was also laughing, and Craig glared at them all, unamused. 

“Fuck off, Clyde,” he clipped. His friends, still laughing, ignored him. 

“No, but,” Clyde said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes when he could finally speak again. “In all seriousness. He looks good, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Token said. “He looks healthier.”

“He said he’s been sleeping better and following a diet, so that helps,” Kenny told them. “Plus, he said he trains, like. Daily.”

“He’s got to,” Clyde said. “He’s like a miniature Adonis, dude. Did you see his arms? He’s not a beefcake or anything, but they’re like. Crazy toned.”

“All the exercise helps his anxiety,” Kenny said. “So he’s not tearing his hair out, anymore, either, or at least it doesn’t look like he is.”

“And he cut it,” Token said. “It looks better short.”

“What, it’s about my length, right?” Clyde asked Kenny. “That’s kind of what it looked like, but we were pretty far.”

“No, you’re right, it’s about that long,” Kenny said. “It’s weird. He looks like a completely different person.”

“Yeah, puberty was very kind to Tweek,” Clyde said nodding. He glanced over the rim of his soda can, smirking mischievously at Craig, who had made every attempt to tune out of this conversation, positive they were going to find a way to bring it back to him. “He might even be out of your league now, Craig.”

Craig just flipped him off. “I’m hot as fuck,” he muttered into his plate.

“I’m not denying that you’re a good looking dude, dude. But like. You’re here,” he said, holding his hand up to his eyebrows. “And Tweek’s like... waaaaaay up here.” He raised his arm over his head.

“You have to admit he looks good, dude,” Kenny said, and if his tone had seemed at all like he was still teasing, Craig would have just flipped him off.

“Yeah, I guess he does,” Craig said. “But it’s not like he was ugly when we were kids.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Token said. “He just looked... I don’t know. Like, you looked at him and you could tell he was sick.”

“Hm,” Craig grunted.

“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” Token continued. “And if he were ugly, he’d still look better now just because he’s taking better care of himself.”

“Did he say what gym he went to?” Clyde asked. He looked down at his own arms, flexing his muscles and pinching them. “I gotta figure out what kind of exercise routine he’s following, god damn.”

“No, but we could ask him,” Kenny said, then turned to Craig. “Why don’t you text him?”

“Why don’t you text him?” Craig fired back defensively.

“My phone’s downstairs.”

Craig rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he grumbled, pulling out his phone. He sent a quick text (“ _ Hey, Clyde wants to know what gym you go to. _ ”), then put his phone away.

From there, the conversation drifted onto other topics. Clyde was just telling them about the girl from his history class he had a date with on Friday when Craig felt his phone go off in his pocket.

_ “ Reed’s gym, it’s over in North Park. Why does Clyde want to know? ” _

His friends, focused on Clyde, didn’t notice that he’d pulled out his phone, so he typed back a quick response. _“_ _ He saw your arms at the fight last week and he’s jealous of your muscles. ” _

Tweek’s response came much quicker that time. _“_ _ LOL. Tell Clyde I can deadlift 230 pounds and let me know how he reacts. ” _

“Hey, Clyde,” Craig said suddenly. Clyde stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked at Craig expectantly. “Tweek wanted me to tell you he can deadlift 230 pounds.”

Craig immediately understood why Tweek wanted him to tell him that. Clyde’s jaw dropped almost to the floor, and his eyes widened comically. “Get the fuck out,” he said, then reached over the table and snatched Craig’s phone out of his hand. He read the message, and repeated, “Get the fuck out!”

He started typing a message in response, and Craig said, “Hey!” He stood up to try to take his phone back, but Clyde just pushed him back by his face, staring at the phone screen in shock. “Dude, give me my phone.”

“Hold on,” Clyde said, keeping his eyes glued on the screen. A few minutes later, the phone buzzed again, and Clyde touched the screen a couple of times, then stared at it in awe. 

“Fuck me,” he groaned a minute later, throwing it on the table, narrowly avoiding tossing it directly into a bowl of guacamole. “I weigh forty pounds more than him and I can only lift 210.” 

Craig picked up his phone to see it was open on an Instagram video. It had looped back to the beginning, and Tweek was squatting in front of a bar with very large, very heavy-looking weights on either end. When Craig looked more closely, he could see, on the edges of every weight, what size they were, and Craig counted 230 pounds. Kenny and Token leaned in to try to watch, so Craig held it out for them, and they all watched as Tweek--who looked like picking up one of those weights on its own would be enough to shatter him--slowly but surely lifted them up to his thighs, and then repeated his movements in reverse until the bar was set back down on the floor. Once he was done, he turned to the person holding the camera and raised his arms above his head, victorious.

Kenny whistled lowly, impressed, and Token just said, “Wow.”

Clyde was caught between being impressed and pouting. “Craig,” he said, his voice urgent. Craig looked up at him, distracted from the video, which had looped back to the beginning again. “You have my permission to marry him.”

“Fuck off, Clyde,” Craig said flatly.

“No, dude, I’m not joking this time,” Clyde emphasized. “If you don’t, I’m going to make myself be gay and marry him myself.”

“No homo?” Craig suggested.

Clyde looked him dead in the eyes and said, his tone more serious than Craig had ever heard, “No, dude. FULL homo.”

They laughed, and after a couple seconds, Clyde joined in, and they helped themselves to more tacos and discussed Clyde’s obvious crush on Tweek. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...heeeeeeey guys. So about those technical difficulties....
> 
> It's been an absolutely WILD six months. I got a car. And a puppy. My sister (who is young) is pregnant, so that's been a whole huge thing. I work an overnight full time job and a part time job during the day. My laptop crapped out in January, and after trying to get it fixed (which involved a lot more phone calls to the manufacturer and trips to Best Buy than I would have guessed, because apparently my laptop was... weird? Somehow? I am not computer savvy) and failing to get it fixed and being discouraged and irritated, I decided to take a little break from the internet for a while, and... it actually really worked out for me. As stated, I got a dog, and a car, and another job, and I'm happier than I've been in a very, very long time.
> 
> So, I am suuuuuuuuuuper sorry about the long wait for this. And I'm sorry, but I can't promise consistent updates in the future, either. I never bothered to replace my laptop once I figured out that I was much happier without it, so I'm borrowing my mom's work laptop, and she's usually using it whenever I have free time, so. I'll do what I can, when I can, but I'm not going to make promises I don't know I'll be able to keep. I'll try my best, that's all I can do.
> 
> Anyways, I hope y'all liked this looooong-awaited chapter. I loved writing this one because it goes all over the place, and all my faves are in it, so. Good times, y'all. Good times.


	7. Hey You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Hey You"](https://youtu.be/TFjmvfRvjTc) by Pink Floyd.
> 
>  
> 
> _Hey you_  
>  _Out there in the cold, getting lonely, getting old_  
>  _Can you feel me?_  
>  _Hey you_  
>  _Standing in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles_  
>  _Can you feel me?_  
>  _Hey you_  
>  _Don't help them to bury the light_  
>  _Don't give in without a fight_

Friday came much quicker than it usually did, and Craig would credit that to the week he’d had; it was easily one of the best he’d had in a while. Dr. Tompkins had told him on Tuesday that his school had readily approved the internship, and so after another week of reception work, he would officially start working as an animal care tech, and he was greatly looking forward to it. His parents told him on Thursday that his Grandma would be home for dinner that Sunday, and he hadn’t seen his Grandma in weeks, so that was exciting. And, after initiating the conversation with him on Monday, he and Tweek had kept up a slow, steady conversation, which mostly consisted of making fun of Clyde, so Craig was pleased. He’d forgotten how well he and Tweek got along, how easily they were able to converse now that the awkward re-introductory period was over. They’d been so close as kids, and Craig thought it was nice that they could still be friends even after not talking for so long.

Craig was in such a good mood by Friday that when Kenny came up to his apartment at eleven, Craig generously offered to drive them to the fights, saying that Kenny always drove him around.

“Are you sure, dude? I really don’t care,” Kenny said.

“No, it’s fine,” Craig said. “I’ll drive.”

“What is up with you, dude?” Kenny smiled as he sat down on the couch. “You’ve been a ray of fucking sunshine all week.”

Craig just shrugged. “I’m in a good mood,” he said simply. “I’m finally going to be doing work that I like, Grandma’s coming to dinner this weekend, me and Tweek have been talking. Lots of good shit going for me right now.”

“Oh, you have?” Kenny asked, clearly referring to the bit about Tweek. He seemed genuinely surprised. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Craig agreed. “So. I’m having a good week, I guess.”

“That’s awesome,” Kenny said, beaming. “Glad to hear it, dude.”

“Thanks,” Craig said. He wasn’t sure if that was the right response to give, but fuck it. He didn’t care. He would ask Kenny how his week was to be polite, but he’d seen Kenny every day this week, and Kenny was a lot more talkative about his business. Instead he asked, “How was Karen?”

“She was good,” Kenny said, sitting up a little, betraying his eagerness to talk about his sister. “We just grabbed some McDonalds and hung out at my place. I guess some boy she has a crush on asked her to see a movie tomorrow, so she’s fucking stoked about that.”

“How do you feel about it?” Craig asked, grinning.

Kenny shrugged. “It was going to happen eventually,” he said, his hands out in a ‘what are you going to do’ gesture at his sides. “Karen’s adorable and sweet, and I’m just surprised it took this long. She says he’s a good kid, and I’ll take her word for it. I trust that she won’t let herself be taken advantage of.”

“Huh,” Craig said. “I don’t know what reaction I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.”

Kenny snorted. “What, did you think I’d be chasing the boys away from her with a shotgun or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“That’d be a little hypocritical of me, don’t you think?” Kenny asked with a wry grin. “Besides, she’s seventeen. She knows how to take care of herself.” Kenny paused, and looked toward the TV screen. It was off, but Craig didn’t think he was looking for a distraction. “She also knows that I will beat that kid’s fucking face in with my bare hands if he so much as tries anything, so.”

Craig laughed. “I think that’s closer to what I was expecting.”

“Hey, man, I’m not her keeper. Just her protective older brother who will destroy anyone who hurts her,” he said simply. “That’s how it’s always been, and she knows it.”

“I don’t get it, man,” Craig said, shaking his head. “If I interfered with Trish’s life in any way, she’d beat the shit out of me.”

“I think Trish and Karen are two very different kinds of people,” Kenny said. “Karen is shy and not really a leader. Trish is--”

“An asshole.”

Kenny laughed. “That’s not how I was going to put it.”

Craig shrugged. “Why not? She is.”

“Maybe to you,” Kenny said. “She’s always been nice to me.”

“You’re Karen’s overprotective big brother, of course she’d be nice to you,” Craig pointed out. “Plus, Karen thinks you’re God’s gift to mankind or something. If Trish was an asshole to you, I think that would be what finally incited Karen to rage.”

Kenny hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, maybe,” he said vaguely. Then he shook his head. “Well, anyways. Want to get going? We left at 11:30 last time and almost didn’t make it in time. Maybe we should leave a little earlier today.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Craig said. Instead of moving, though, he pulled out his phone. “Let me text Tweek real quick and let him know we’re on our way. He said that he won’t be able to come find us before his fight, but at least he’ll know to look for us.”

Kenny waited patiently for Craig to send his text, then stood up when Craig put his phone away.

“All right,” Craig said after putting on his coat and making sure his keys were in his pocket. “Let’s go.”  
 

* * *

 

  
It was an overcast night, unlike last week, and so it was nearly impossible to see much further than a few feet ahead, even with his high beams on. He’d delegated Kenny to look for the turnoff, and focused his own attention on making sure he didn’t hit anything that might come running out of the woods.

“Slow down a bit,” Kenny said suddenly. “I think we’re close.”

Just as Craig put his foot on the brake, Kenny said, “Shit, it’s right there,” pointing to a small area only a few feet ahead of them that was clear of trees.

“Fuck,” Craig said, stomping on the brake. They still missed it, but there were no other cars around, so Craig did a quick U-turn, pulling them right onto the path.

“I know they can’t really mark the location, but fuck,” Kenny said, shaking his head. “It’s a wonder so many people can find the damn place.”

Craig nodded in agreement, keeping his eyes glued to the steep path in front of them. Living in such a mountainous area, he didn’t know of anybody who didn’t know how to drive on steep roads, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous, and he didn’t feel like killing himself and Kenny tonight.

Once the path levelled off a little, Craig could see where other people had started to park, and Kenny kept a lookout for an open spot amidst the trees. When he pointed one out to Craig, Craig carefully navigated around the trees and parked.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, climbing out of the car. “I’m surprised Clyde didn’t bitch more last week. That was such a pain in the ass.”

“I think he was trying to not give you and Token any more reason to bitch,” Kenny said.

“Hm. Yeah, probably.”

They took to the path in silence then, only jumping a little when the same two guys from last time stepped out from behind the trees, blocking the way.

They seemed to recognize them though, because instead of asking who they were or what they were doing there, the one Craig thought was named Ross just said, “Five bucks each.”

They both reached into their pockets and pulled out their payment, putting each bill into Ross’s outstretched hand. “Thanks,” he said, nodding them down the path. “Enjoy the show.”

“Thanks, man,” Kenny said, and they made their way to the clearing, where a crowd about the same size as last time was gathered. The atmosphere was the same; relaxed, friendly, and calm, with an undercurrent of excited anticipation. Clouds of smoke and fumes from cigarettes, vapes, and pot surrounded the bonfires circling the ring, giving the air a hazy translucence and a sweet, pleasant, ashy scent.

“I’m freezing my fucking balls off,” Kenny said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, drawing the panels of his jacket closer to himself.

Craig looked around at the bonfires and saw one that wasn’t too crowded. “Here, let’s go see if we can join in over there,” he said, pointing. Kenny nodded, and they made their way over.

“Hey guys,” Kenny said, addressing the small group that was gathered around. “Mind if we stand here?”

“Go for it,” one of the guys said. “It’s not our fire.”

“Cool, thanks,” Kenny said, holding his hands out closer to the fire to warm them up. The group resumed its conversation, and Craig pulled out his phone to check the time, only to see he had a text from Tweek.

“ _Let me know where you’ll be standing so I can find you guys when I’m done,_ ” he’d said.

Craig looked around and sent back, “ _We’re at the second bonfire to the left from the path that leads back down to the road. Kenny’s freezing his ass off, so we’ll probably stick around here._ ”

And a moment later, he got, “ _Cool. Thanks. I’ll keep my eyes peeled._ ”

That taken care of, Craig put his phone back in his pocket, and Kenny asked, “Tweek?”

Craig nodded, and one of the girls in the group looked over.

“Are you guys friends with Tweek?” she asked.

Kenny nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been friends since elementary school.”

The girl smiled. “That kid is crazy. His win record is like. Damn,” she said, impressed. Also high as balls, Craig noticed.

Kenny and Craig exchanged glances. “We only just started coming to these things last week,” Kenny told her. “What’s his record?”

One of the guys joined in the conversation. “He’s been doing this for like. Three years now, I think, and he’s only lost... what, three fights? Four?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They start this up in late August and go until the first week of January, so that’s....” she paused, doing some quick math in her head. Craig was impressed by her accuracy, given how high she was. “Almost twenty a year, for three years, so like. More than sixty fights, and he’s only lost three or four times? It’s wild, man.”

“Holy shit,” Kenny said. “We know he trains a lot, but damn.”

“Yeah, dude,” said another guy, pausing to inhale from what, given the context clues, was likely a joint. “He’s crazy good. He could probably go pro if he wanted.”

Craig looked down at the fire, taking his gloves off and holding his hands out to warm them up. He wondered if that was something Tweek wanted to do. He might; Tweek liked to do things he was good at, and he was really good at fighting. But if he felt obligated--and he very likely did--he would give it up to do what it was he had to do; he would run the coffee shop, because he had grown up knowing that it would be his one day. He would have to ask.

Craig kept quiet, but Kenny kept up the conversation, making small talk about Tweek and some of the other fighters, until the announcer--Chris--got up on the stage and got things started.  
 

* * *

  
It followed the same pattern as last week; from the heavyweights to the lightweights, pairs of fighters got up on the stage, beat each other senseless, and moved on. Craig wasn’t half as invested in the proceedings as he’d been last time; he was far more interested in watching Tweek, and so he waited, clapping politely at the end of every match, until Chris finally announced that they were moving on to the featherweights.

The first pair consisted of Josh--Tweek’s opponent from last week--and some other person, and Craig waited with less and less patience for them to finish their match. At the beginning of the third bout, Craig felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and pulled it out.

“ _I’m up next. Wish me luck! You guys are still near that bonfire, right?_ ”

“ _Yeah, we haven’t moved,_ ” Craig responded.

“ _Cool. When I’m done, meet me on the path that leads further into the woods, we can hang out in the member's cabin back there._ ”

“ _Got it,_ ” Craig sent. He was about to put his phone away when something else occurred to him. He opened his messages back up, and sent another quick message. “ _Good luck._ ”

Tweek sent a smiley-face emoji in reply, and Craig put his phone back.

“Tweek’s up next,” he told Kenny, who grinned, although whether that was in response to what Craig had just said or if it were a reaction to what had just gone down up on the stage, Craig didn’t know. Josh had just thrown a devastating punch, getting his opponent right on the side of the head, knocking him out instantly.

“All right!” Chris said, once the first aid responders had finished checking out Josh’s opponent. He seemed to be fine, although he seemed to be a little dazed where he stood. “Let’s get another round of applause for Mike over here,” he said, gesturing to the loser. “And let’s hear it for Josh!”

Craig clapped with much more enthusiasm than he had earlier, although he was mostly just eager to finally see Tweek fight after nearly three hours of waiting.

“All right, everybody. In this corner, weighing in at 134 pounds, measuring five foot six, our twice-consecutive lightweight champion, and last year’s featherweight champion, Tweek ‘Blonde Roast’ Tweaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!”

Craig clapped again, inching slightly away when Kenny cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a roaring cheer. Tweek climbed up on the stage and looked directly toward the source of the noise. When he saw Kenny and Craig, he grinned, and Kenny gave him a thumbs up. Craig, on his part, just kept clapping.

Chris announced his opponent, some dude named Anthony, then he climbed down, told them to touch the gloves they weren’t wearing, the bell rang, and the fight began.

Unlike last week, when Tweek had spent the entire first bout jumping around evading, this time, he started the instant he heard the bell. Anthony didn’t seem to be expecting this, and Tweek managed to hit him twice before Anthony gathered himself enough to dodge.

He was all offense this week; he rained down upon his opponent a barrage of quick, sharp jabs at his face and chest, aimed swift kicks at his sides, and had just set himself up to start a kick that looked forceful enough to have ended the fight when the bell rang.

The audience let out a loud, collective “aww” of disappointment, Craig among them. That hadn’t felt like three minutes. But Tweek dutifully lowered his leg and made his way to his corner, and Anthony, who appeared to be grateful for his good fortune, staggered his way over to his.

Craig watched Tweek closely. Last week he’d been in good spirits, had engaged in apparently cheerful conversation with the audience closest to him, had been smiling and having a good time. He looked a lot more serious today, almost nervous. Craig hadn’t seen him smile once since he first saw the two of them, even after landing as many hits as he had. He just drank from his water bottle and snuck glances at Anthony in the other corner, stretched a little bit, and looked back over at Kenny and Craig one more time. Kenny waved at him, then punched his hand into his fist, and Craig gave him a thumbs up. Not smiling, Tweek nodded once, then turned back to make his way towards the center when the bell rang.

Ah. That’s what it was. Anthony was a tougher opponent than Josh was. Tweek wasn’t nervous. He was focused.

They touched gloves again, and then the bell rang and they were off. Tweek waited this time, wanting to see what Anthony would do. This proved to be a bad idea, because, given that time to seek out a weakness in Tweek’s defensive stance, Anthony quickly raised his leg and kicked Tweek hard in his side.

Craig winced, feeling his blood pressure spike, but Tweek just took a few quick steps back, putting himself out of range for the punch Anthony had started. In the fraction of time Anthony took to pull his fist back, Tweek descended, throwing more sharp punches, but Craig noticed that they were a bit weaker than they’d been before he’d been hit, and they were slower. Anthony was able to dodge them much easier, and Tweek barely landed half of the blows he’d thrown.

This bout was much more back and forth than the first; Tweek had dominated in the first bout, but he seemed to have tired himself out a little, and wasn’t able to get at Anthony as much as he had before. Anthony took full advantage of this, and, despite having been dealt a much greater variety of injuries, was able to block or dodge a lot of what Tweek was throwing at him, and was able to throw a lot more back than he had before.

At the three minute mark, the bell rang again, and Tweek moved a little slower towards his corner. One of the first aid responders called something up to him, and Tweek shook his head, rubbing his side just below his ribs where Anthony had gotten him in the beginning of the bout. Nothing else Anthony had thrown had been half as hard; he’d gotten Tweek’s shoulders a few times on both sides, and Craig thought he’d seen Tweek take a punch to the jaw, but Tweek didn’t even notice it; maybe he’d just grazed him. Tweek held on to the post that stood on his corner, breathing deeply, and when the bell rang, he went back to the center, a look of redoubled concentration on his face.

Unless Anthony could really turn things around in this bout, he was definitely going to lose; Tweek had gotten him a fair few times on his legs, had landed a punch on his face that had given him a cut above his eyebrow, and Craig could almost see the bruise next to one eye where Tweek had gotten him in the first bout. But he still looked in control of himself; he seemed to be just as focused as Tweek, and they bumped their fists together again and waited for the bell.

They were both a little slower to start this time; they spent the first ten seconds or so just circling each other, looking for an opening, planning their next moves. Tweek acted first; maybe he was aware that he had a good shot at winning if he kept it up, or maybe he thought he’d seen his opening, but he started with a fast volley of punches, landing about half of them on Anthony’s chest and shoulders when Anthony had managed to block him, then hopped back when Anthony threw a jab at his injured side. Tweek was hunched slightly, keeping his fists up but his injured side turned away from Anthony; it must have been hurting him, and Craig’s own fists were clenched in his pockets.

It had to be close to the last thirty seconds of the bout when Anthony suddenly threw himself in, and it was like the beginning of the bout; he was nothing but thrown fists, sudden kicks, weaving punches thrown back at him and countering with his own attacks. Tweek was able to block a lot of them, but one fast uppercut did get him right on the cheekbone, and Craig gasped aloud when he saw that Tweek was bleeding where it had landed.

It was near the last ten seconds that Tweek, apparently tired of being Anthony’s punching bag, twisted his body and threw all his remaining force into one good punch. He got Anthony right above his ear, and Anthony, having not expected it or prepared for it, staggered a few steps back before falling to his knees. Again, Tweek had just wound up to aim a kick that likely would have ended the fight when the bell rang, Tweek’s foot only inches from the side of Anthony’s head.

Tweek paused in that stance, then slowly brought his foot back and put it back on the ground. Clutching his side and bent slightly at his waist, Craig could see the both of them breathing heavily as Chris climbed up onto the stage and brought his megaphone up to speak through it.

“Well, folks, just like the last time these two fought each other, they’ve gone the distance, and ended with no knockout,” Chris said. “Let’s hear it for both of ‘em!”

Craig gave a quick golf clap, saving his real applause for when Chris declared the winner.

“We judge the winner of circumstances like this by boxing rules,” Chris continued. He gestured to Anthony, who was still on his knees, dazed but conscious. “Anthony had 26 points,” Chris said, then paused dramatically, and gestured to Tweek, who had stood a little straighter but was still wincing a bit in pain. “And Tweek had 28. Tweek wins!”

Now, Craig clapped.  
  


* * *

  
The first aid responders wound up climbing up on stage to check Anthony out (he seemed to be having a hard time climbing to his feet, but he did manage eventually with a little help), but Tweek, as soon as he was dismissed, carefully stepped down from the stage, and Craig nudged Kenny to get his attention.

“We’re supposed to go meet Tweek on that path back there,” he said. Kenny nodded, and the two of them made their way around the outside of the crowd and down the path.

Once they turned the corner around the furthest cabin from where they’d been, they saw Tweek waiting there, leaning against a tree. He was still shirtless; Craig didn’t know how he could be out in this weather so scantily clad, but then again, Tweek had never seemed as affected by the cold as everybody else. He was rubbing his side mindlessly when Craig and Kenny approached.

“Hey, guys,” he said, raising his other arm in a wave. His knuckles were still taped up. Craig saw a small patch of dried blood on one of them.

“Hey,” Craig said.

“Hey, Tweek. Congrats on the win,” Kenny said.

Tweek just quirked a half-smile at him, dropping it quickly into a wince when it apparently aggravated his cheek. “Thanks,” he said, then pushed off the tree, standing just slightly hunched over. “I didn’t think it was going to go so well. Last time I fought Anthony, I came out of it much worse. He’s one of the only people here who can beat me. I’m just glad that this is the worst of it.”

They walked slowly down the path, Tweek being very careful not to move his torso around too much, and after a few twists and turns, they came upon another cluster of cabins only a minute’s walk away.

“So, this is where we hang out,” Tweek said, leading toward what had probably been a mess hall, holding the door open for them as they filed inside.

It was noisy, for starters; all the fighters from earlier, some people who might have been their friends in the audience, and a few who were small enough and put-together enough not to have fought yet, were gathered around picnic tables, talking, putting on bandages, doing warm-up stretches or just sitting off to the side, waiting for something.

As soon as Tweek walked in, the people closest to the door started cheering. Tweek just waved bashfully, making his way over to a table further towards the back, sitting down on a bench with his back to the table, and reaching over to a bag behind him that must have been his. Kenny and Craig sat on the bench across from him, facing him.

“Did you guys enjoy the fights?” Tweek asked, pulling out another bottle of water and twisting the cap on it.

“Hell yeah, dude,” Kenny said cheerfully, while Craig nodded. “This is all cool as shit.”

Tweek smiled at him, using the side of his mouth without the injury. “Yeah, I think so too.”

All of a sudden, a girl with a black eye and a split lip dropped down onto the bench next to Tweek, handing him an ice pack. “For your face, honey,” she explained.

“Thank you so much,” Tweek said, closing his eyes blissfully when he put it up to his cheek. “Anthony really got me good there. I’m just glad he didn’t get my eye.”

“That’s what I was aiming for,” someone said, and Craig looked over toward the source of the voice. Anthony was sitting at the table across the center aisle, one of the heavyweights bending over him to put butterfly bandages on the cut above his eyebrow. “One good punch to the eye and you’re out, boy.”

“Well, your aim was shit tonight, then,” Tweek said, snorting. “You didn’t get my rib, either, and I know that’s what you were going for.”

“Eh,” Anthony said with a shrug. “I’ll get it next time.”

“The hell you will!”

Anthony was about to retort when the heavyweight smacked the side of his face with the back of his hand. It wasn’t very hard, but Anthony still winced a little. “Keep your mouth shut,” the guy said. “I can’t get these bandages on with you running your mouth.”

Anthony just grinned at him and said, “Good job, Tweek,” before turning back to face the fighter who was helping him with his injury.

“Yeah, you too, man. I’m gonna be sore for a month,” Tweek responded, rubbing his side again. Craig could see a large, impressively purple bruise just under Tweek’s hand. Then Tweek addressed the girl sitting next to him. “Oh. Sorry, Rachel,” he said. “This is Craig, and that’s Kenny. Craig, Kenny, this is Rachel.”

“Hi,” Kenny said, waving. Craig nodded.

“Oh, you’re Tweek’s friends from elementary school, right?” Rachel asked pleasantly. “He was telling me about you guys earlier.”

“Yeah, we’ve been around a while,” Kenny responded. “Well. When we were kids. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him, though.”

“Well, you picked a great place for a reunion,” Rachel said, snorting.

Kenny shrugged. “It just sort of happened this way. You can imagine our shock when we show up last week and all of a sudden this guy we haven’t seen in years gets up on the stage.”

Tweek laughed a little, cringing when he irritated the bruise on his cheek again. “I wish I could have seen it.”  
 

* * *

  
They made more pleasant small talk as the minutes passed. Every so often, a couple of people would stand up and walk out, a few “good luck!”s following them, and a minute later, another pair would come back in in varying states of damage. They would make their way to wherever they’d dropped their stuff earlier, and, depending on the severity of their injuries, they’d grab themselves an ice pack or some bandages, or someone else would do it for them. After that happened a few times, suddenly Chris came back in followed closely by the first aid responders, and when they did, the whole room fell quiet.

“All right, everybody,” he said, grinning. “Good job tonight all around. No hospital visits is always a good night. Let’s give ourselves a round of applause.”

Everybody in the room clapped politely, and Craig noticed that the first aid responders were particularly enthusiastic.

“Just a reminder, if you’re going to need a Friday off, let me know,” Chris continued. “We’re going to start gearing up for championship brackets, and I’ll need to take those into account. Yes, Sarah, I got your note, you’re good,” he said, addressing a girl who had raised her hand. He drew a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked it over quickly before speaking again. “Just a few reminders: Anderson, Levinski, Miller, both of the Fosters, and Ellis have their meets out in Denver this weekend, if anybody wants to go support them. Russell, Fisher, Mills, and Johnson are next weekend if anybody wants to go to that, so let’s wish them all luck.”

Everybody clapped again, and Chris clapped too. When everything quieted down, he continued. “Our end of the year party has been decided. It’s going to be on January 14th, at about seven at my place for anybody who wants to come. Let me know if you need my address. I’m putting a sign up sheet next to the rules if anyone wants to bring a dish to share so we don’t have sixteen bowls of taco dip like we did last year.” Light laughter rippled through the room, and Chris added, “I want two, max. The rest of y’all will have to bring something else.

“At the party, we’re gonna have our vote for who’ll be club president next year, so--”

“Come on, Chris,” someone shouted at him from the back of the room. “We do this every year, and every year, you’re unanimous. Do we really need to keep doing it?”

A few mumbles of agreement piped up from around the room, and Chris just smiled.

“Yes, we’re doing it again,” Chris said. “Just ‘cause we’re all friends doesn’t mean we can’t do things by the book. If anybody else wants to run, there’d be no hard feelings.”

“Nobody wants your job, Chris,” Rachel shouted. “You’re stuck with it.”

Everybody laughed at that, including Chris. “Well, regardless,” he finally said, once the room was quiet enough. “We’re having the vote at the party, so if that’s important to you, make sure you’re there. Now before I let you all go, does anybody have anything else they want to bring up?” When he was met with nothing but silence, he nodded. “All right. Then y’all have a good week, and I’ll see you next Friday.”

With the dismissal, everybody got to their feet. Conversations sprung up all around them, bags zipped, and some people left, but most of them stuck around, talking.

“So, Tweek,” Rachel said. “Were you going to invite your friends to Benny’s or not?”

“Agh!” Tweek shouted. “I forgot!’

Rachel just smiled, and turned to Craig and Kenny. “Do you guys want to come grab dinner with us? It’s just going to be me, Tweek, and a couple other people.”

Craig looked at Kenny, who looked hesitant. “I’ve got some stuff I have to do,” Kenny said. Then he amended. “In the morning. I’ve got stuff I have to do in the morning. It’s getting late.”

Craig was disappointed. “I guess not,” he said. “I drove us up here.”

“You could just drop me off,” Kenny pointed out. “Don’t let me keep you from getting out of the house for once.”

“That’d be kind of out of the way,” Craig said hesitantly.

“Well, one of us could drive you home,” Rachel said. “If you don’t mind Kenny taking your car.”

“Yeah,” Tweek piped up. “I have to drive back to South Park anyways.”

Craig looked at Kenny, who just shrugged. “It’s up to you, dude,” he said. “I don’t mind taking your car.”

Craig reached into his pocket and grabbed his keys. “Do you remember where we parked?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Kenny said. Then he stood up. “Well, if that’s that, then I’m gonna go. I’ll leave your keys in your mailbox, dude.”

“All right. See you,” Craig said.

“Nice meeting you,” Rachel said.

“Thanks for coming,” Tweek said.

Kenny nodded with a smile, congratulated Tweek again, and headed out the door.

“Well,” Rachel said, as soon as he was out of sight. “You guys wanna get going?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are. Now that the weather's starting to turn, and my dog doesn't require constant attention to keep him out of shit he shouldn't be touching, I should be able to get the next chapter out at least a little bit sooner. :')
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed it!!


	8. No Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["No Rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro6WnUFjnuw) by Blind Melon
> 
> _All I can say is that my life is pretty plain_   
>  _I like watchin' the puddles gather rain_   
>  _And all I can do is just pour some tea for two_   
>  _And speak my point of view but it's not sane_

Rachel had parked much closer to the clearing than Tweek had, so Craig and Tweek had a ways to walk. It was bitter cold out now, as late as it was; ice had frosted the ground over, and Craig could feel the grass snap and crunch under his feet. He was wearing layers on layers, and he was still cold, but all Tweek had on were the shorts he’d worn to fight in and a baggy hoodie he’d thrown on before leaving the member’s cabin. Craig side-eyed him a few times before he finally asked, “Dude, aren’t you cold?”

“Not right now,” he said. “I have an extra hoodie in my bag, though, in case I get cold later.”

“How?” Craig asked.

“I did warmups for hours before my fight,” Tweek explained with a shrug. “Plus, the cold never really bothered me anyways.” When Craig chuckled humorlessly, Tweek looked at him curiously.

“Nothing,” Craig said, not wanting to admit that he was thinking of Frozen, or that he’d ever even watched Frozen. But now that he thought about it, Tweek kind of reminded him of Elsa, with the blonde hair and anxiety. Tweek could sing, too, or at least, he could when they were kids. Craig tried to stifle a laugh as he wondered what Tweek would sound like singing along to Let It Go.

They walked the rest of the way to Tweek’s car in silence. It was a battered, rusted old Pontiac that looked like one good kick would send it tumbling to pieces. Feeling a sudden upsurge of appreciation for his own car, Craig suddenly asked, “So, when did you get your license?”

“Huh? Oh,” Tweek said, climbing in and turning the car on. It rattled and made a worrying clunking noise, but Tweek didn’t seem bothered by it. “Uh. When I was sixteen. My parents were really eager for me to start driving so they didn’t have to drive me to my boxing lessons every day. They got me my car for my seventeenth birthday.”

“Oh,” Craig said. “Cool.”

“What about you?”

“Same. Sixteen,” Craig said. “My Grandma gave me her car when she moved into the retirement home. I probably still wouldn’t have a car if she hadn’t.”

“Is Trish driving?”

“Yeah,” Craig said. “She’s shit out of luck for a car, though. So she borrows my dad’s, which he’s super thrilled about.”

Tweek laughed, then shifted gears and pulled them carefully out of the forest and onto the path. The car shook as it drove, and made a loud whirring sound whenever Tweek put his foot on the gas, which Craig didn’t notice until they were back on the main road. He didn’t want to point it out, because Tweek was probably already aware of it and nervous about it, but he was curious. Instead, he asked, “So, how long have you been doing this?”

“The fights?” Craig nodded. “About three years. I--nngh--was hesitant about it at first, but nothing worse than a few black eyes has happened since I started, so I keep going back.”

“Kenny was talking to some people in the crowd earlier. They said you’ve only lost, like. A handful of times?”

Tweek smirked. It took Craig a moment to realize that he was staring, and another to realize that what he was feeling was astonishment. “Yeah. I’m really good. I mean. I’m not trying to brag or anything, but--ergh--when you only lose four times in three years, that says a lot.”

“Brag all you want,” Craig said. “I wouldn’t shut up about it if it were me.” Tweek grinned widely, but didn’t respond. They lapsed into silence again, and Craig couldn’t help but note that Tweek looked almost dangerous when he showed his teeth like that; his face was illuminated only by the lights of the dashboard, throwing his features into sharp contrast.

As a kid, Tweek had been decidedly round in shape. He had a round face, slumped shoulders, a round midsection. Even his hair, which had sprung up out of his head like grass, had formed a perfect circle around his face, exaggerating the shape. In the corners of his jaw and the slope of his shoulders, Craig could still see hints of that roundness, and if he didn’t know better, he might mistake it for softness. But the rest of him----the lines of his nose, the shape of his eyes, even the cut of his hair--sharpened him, elongated him, and even though he was still short (he maybe came up to Craig’s chin), it made him seem taller and longer than he was. 

For Craig’s part, he didn’t really notice the changes in himself, having happened so gradually and so minutely he didn’t notice it had happened at all, but people pointed out differences to him if they hadn’t seen him in a while. He was taller, for one, but he’d always been tall. He was thin, but he’d always been thin. His jaw was more prominent, his cheekbones more noticeable, but other than that, he didn’t really notice much difference. Not like with Tweek; Tweek was almost an entirely new person, almost unrecognizable.

But then, for all Craig knew, he was an entirely new person. They had only ever known each other as kids, but so much changes between age twelve and age twenty-one, and that was nine years of Tweek’s life he had no knowledge of at all. But he wanted to, he found. He wished he could have known Tweek as a teenager. He wondered what that had been like. He wondered how he would even start to ask.

He knew that he wouldn’t get the chance if he only ever saw Tweek for these few hours on a Friday night, though. So he said, “We should hang out sometime.”

Tweek’s eyebrows quirked up. “We’re hanging out right now, man.”

“I mean, like. Again. After this.”

“Oh,” Tweek said. And then after a moment’s pause, “Yeah. Nnn. Okay.”

Craig nodded, settled back in his seat and watched the formless mass of trees pass them by in the dark. They could figure it out later, but that would do for now.  
  


* * *

 

They made small talk about school until they got to Benny’s, and when they got there, Tweek went to his bag in the backseat first.

“I’m getting a little cold now,” he explained, pulling out another hoodie and throwing it on over the one he was already wearing. Craig waited patiently for him, and then followed behind him as they made their way inside.

The hostess was the same woman who had sat them the last time Craig had been here. When she saw the two of them, she smiled warmly, and said, “Hi, boys. Everyone else is already here.”

“Thanks, Miriam,” Tweek said, and she led them to the table where Rachel was sitting with a few other people, some of whom Craig knew by face but not by name, and some of whom he’d never seen before. He assumed they were the other fighters’ friends. When Rachel saw them, she smiled and waved. There were only two seats left at the table; one next to Rachel, and the other across from her. Tweek took the one across, and sat comfortably with his back to the wall. Craig took the seat next to Rachel, and she smiled widely at him.

“Can I get y’all something to drink?” Miriam asked when Tweek and Craig finally sat down. They went around the table, placing their drink orders, and Miriam said, “You got it. I’ll be right back.”

There were eight of them at the table, and the four furthest from Craig struck their conversation back up after greeting Tweek and introducing themselves to Craig, who forgot their names almost as soon as they said them. He, Tweek, Rachel, and the guy sitting next to Tweek started their own.

“So, you guys think you’re gonna go to Chris’ party?” the guy asked.

Rachel nodded. “I am. Chris’ wife makes some bomb-ass party snacks. I’d go just for those. What about you, Tweek? Think you might come this year?”

“Agh! I don’t know,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I feel bad for not going, but--ergh!--I don’t like parties.”

“Even if I’m there?” Rachel asked. She started batting her eyelashes at him, and Tweek just snorted. “Yeah, I figured you would say that.”

There was a lull in the conversation when Miriam came back with their drinks, and after everybody thanked her, Craig looked at Rachel, then looked at Tweek, then looked down at his menu. He wasn’t very astute at picking up on things, and he knew it, but that had been very blatant flirting. Rachel must have had a thing for Tweek. Or maybe they were dating. It suddenly dawned on Craig that he didn’t know if Tweek was actually gay. He’d said he was when they were together, but even Craig had had doubts about himself when he was still a teenager. He’d eventually figured it out after going on a few dates with girls as an experiment; maybe Tweek had done it too, and that resulted in a different conclusion. It never occurred to Craig to ask, but now he wished he had. Or rather, he wished Kenny had; if he’d tried to ask, there’s no way that wouldn’t have been an awkward conversation.

“So, Tweek,” the guy sitting next to him suddenly asked, looking at Craig. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Craig,” Tweek said. “Sorry. Craig, this is Rob.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rob said, holding his hand out. Craig took it, and used every ounce of his willpower not to cringe when Rob nearly crushed his hand. He must have been one of the fighters; Craig didn’t remember him and he didn’t look beat up, so he asked.

“You too,” he said. “Do you fight?”

Rob nodded. “Not for the past few weeks,” he explained, pointing to his head. “Concussion from a legitimate match I was in a few weeks ago. But I’ll be back next week. What about you? Do you fight?”

“Only when I’m pissed off,” Craig answered honestly. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but the other three laughed anyways.

“It’s--ergh--sort of thanks to Craig I ever took up boxing,” Tweek told them.

“Oh, really?” Rachel asked, turning to Craig. “I bet that’s an interesting story.”

Craig just shrugged. “Some assholes in elementary school wanted us to fight each other. Neither of us knew how to fight, so they taught Tweek how to box.”

“What did they teach you?” Rachel asked curiously.

Craig’s answer, “Sumo wrestling,” was met with another round of laughter.

“I can’t imagine that,” Rachel said, grinning at him. “You’re so fit. Do you play sports at all?”

“No,” Craig said. “I’m lazy as shit. I’ve just got good genes.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, giving Craig a once-over. He didn’t notice, too busy looking at his menu when he saw the waitress approach their table.

“Are you guys ready to order?” she asked, pulling out a notebook and pen. They went around the table, placing their orders, and the waitress smiled, took their menus, and asked if they were all good on drinks.

“Could I get some more coffee?” Tweek asked. Craig looked over and saw that his hands were clutching his mug tightly, shaking slightly. 

“I thought you said you were cutting down?” Craig asked.

Tweek shrugged one of his shoulders, wincing a little when he realized too late that that was his injured side. “I’m celebrating,” he said, but his tone, despite his words, did not sound celebratory. In any case, Craig let it slide. It was his business how much coffee he drank. Craig would have to check himself; his instincts of watching out for Tweek, stirred again after sitting dormant for so long, would have to be put aside. They were still getting to know each other again, after all. And if Tweek was dating Rachel, he’d really have to watch himself. He wouldn’t want to step on either of their toes. Both of them could beat his ass easily, and he didn’t need the drama anyways.

“Who’d you fight tonight?” Rob asked him.

“Anthony,” Tweek said. 

“Oooh,” said one of the people at the other end of the table, nodding, apparently having finished with their conversation. Craig thought his name was Ryan. “Yeah, that explains it. He get your ribs?”

“No,” Tweek said, and Craig saw his hand go to his side mindlessly, as if he didn’t know he was doing it. “But he was close. That’s gonna hurt for a while.”

“Yeah, Anthony’s got a hell of a roundhouse,” Rob said, rubbing his chin absentmindedly. “He almost took Charlie out of commission with it a couple of years ago.”

“I remember that,” Rachel said. “He was out for the rest of the year after that.”

The rest of the table chatted for a few minutes then about Charlie, and about Anthony, and the various injuries either of them had given or sustained over the years. Craig kept quiet, just listening, and noticed that, the more Tweek talked about fighting, the less twitchy he got. When the waitress came to refill his coffee, he didn’t even jump. Craig almost wanted to congratulate him.

Eventually, Rachel held out her hand, and said, “Wait, guys, we’re being rude. Craig has no idea what we’re talking about.”

“I don’t care,” Craig said honestly. 

“No, no, Craig,” Rachel said, smiling at him. “We shouldn’t exclude you. We invited you out, we’re not going to make you the third wheel here.”

Craig shrugged, glancing quickly over at Tweek, who was staring down at his coffee. His hands were twitching again, so Craig said, “No, seriously. Go ahead. I don’t talk much anyways.”

“How mysterious,” Rachel teased, and Craig gave her a half-smile to be polite, dropping it almost as soon after. “Are you shy, Craig?”

Craig snorted, and he saw Tweek duck his head, trying to hide his amusement. “No, I’m not shy,” Craig answered. “Just not very talkative.”

“Unless you ask him about his interests,” Tweek piped up, smirking down at his mug. “Then you can’t get him to shut up.”

“Hey,” Craig said defensively, although he really couldn’t deny it.

“Oh, yeah?” Rachel asked. She put her elbow on the edge of the table, leaning her head in her hand. “What are you interested in, Craig?”

“I like space,” Craig said. “And animals.”

“Red Racer,” Tweek added. Craig would have been surprised he remembered that if it weren’t for the fact that Tweek had been forced many, many times to sit through marathons with him. “He could do lectures on Red Racer.”

“That old kids’ show?” Rachel asked, grinning. “I used to watch that with my sisters every Saturday.”

“Craig watched it every day,” Tweek told her. “He had a routine. Get home, feed his guinea pig, then an hour of Red Racer. Unless he had football practice.”

“Oh, so you do play sports,” Rachel said, grinning at him.

“Only in elementary school,” Craig said. “And I only did it ‘cause my dad made me. I hated it. It cut into my Red Racer time.” And his time with Tweek, but he didn’t want to mention that in front of them. 

Rachel just laughed. “So space, animals, and Red Racer, huh?”

Craig nodded. “Nice and boring,” he said simply.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rachel said. “Space is pretty cool. And animals are adorable. Do you work with animals?”

Craig nodded. “I’m a receptionist at a vet’s office. But next week, I’ll start interning in the back, so I’ll actually be working with the animals.”

“Really?” Tweek asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “When did that happen?”

Realizing that he’d never mentioned it during their conversations earlier in the week, Craig nodded. “Yeah, my boss told me about it on Monday.”

Tweek grinned widely at him. “That’s great, man! Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Craig said, giving him a small smile in return. 

“Yeah, congrats,” Rachel added.

“Thank you,” Craig said, smiling at her, too. He dropped the smile as soon as he felt it would be polite. 

“Is that what you want to do?” Rachel asked. “Like. As a career?”

“Yeah,” Craig said. “For now. I’m in school. I want to be a vet.”

“Oh, wow,” Rachel said, dropping her hand from her face. “That’s so much school. I could never be in school for that long.”

Craig just shrugged. “It’s not too bad. Once I get the gen-eds out of the way, it’ll be better.”

“That’s all science, right? Chem and bio, that sort of thing?”

“Yeah,” he said. 

Rachel just shook her head. “I was never any good at science.”

“Me either,” Tweek piped up. 

Craig looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You were good at everything, dude. You were just a bad test-taker.”

Tweek worked his jaw a couple times, trying to figure out how to respond to that. “Uh. Thanks,” he finally settled on. 

Feeling like that might have crossed a line somehow, Craig just said, “Yeah, no problem.” Then he turned back to Rachel and, in an attempt to make it seem like he was invested in the both of them and not just Tweek, asked, “What about you?”

“Hm?”

“What do you do?”

“Oh,” Rachel said. “I dance. I’m in school for dance. I want to be a choreographer.”

“That’s neat,” Craig said, feeling like an idiot when he had no idea what to say.

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Rachel said, smiling at him. “I’ve been studying ballet since I was a kid, and I do tap, jazz, and hip-hop. It was through my hip-hop instructor that I learned about capoeira.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Capoeira?” she asked, and when he nodded, she continued. “It’s the style of martial arts I practice. It’s Brazilian, and it’s really cool, here,” she said, pulling out her phone, clicking on the screen a few times, looking for something. “Watch,” she instructed, handing him the phone when she’d apparently found what she was looking for. 

On the tiny screen, Craig watched as Rachel and somebody else--likely one of her classmates--did a series of incredibly acrobatic jumps and twists and cartwheels around each other, narrowly avoiding kicking each other several times. Craig wasn’t sure what about it was a martial art; it seemed more like a really complicated dance than a fight. But he didn’t want to insult her, so he said, “Wow. That is really cool.”

“I’ve been practicing since I was fourteen,” Rachel said. “It really helps me with my dancing, too. If I don’t make it as a choreographer, I’d like to teach it, if I can.”

Craig nodded, but he didn’t know what to say, so he looked at Tweek, who, on his part, was staring at his cup again. His jaw was really tight, and he was probably clenching his teeth. Suddenly concerned, Craig asked, “Tweek, what’s up?”

“Huh?” He jerked, looking up at them as if he had forgotten they were there. “Oh. Uh. Nothing. Just. Um.”

“Spacing out?” Craig suggested.

“Yeah,” Tweek said. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right, dude. Just watch it with the clenched teeth, it gives you headaches, right?” Craig said before he could think about it. He regretted it as soon as he realized what he’d done, especially when Rachel raised an eyebrow at him and Tweek just looked back down at his coffee, his cheeks going pink.

Craig was mercifully spared from any further awkwardness when the waitress showed up with their food. The table was quiet for a minute as the waitress made sure they each got their correct orders and asked if anybody needed refills. Tweek asked for another coffee. Craig said nothing.  
  


* * *

 

As they were eating, Craig stayed silent. Rachel tried to engage him in conversation again, but he gave very short replies until she eventually gave up and started talking to Tweek about their gym plans for the week. It was just as well. Craig would rather shoot himself in the foot before making things awkward again. 

When everybody was done eating, the waitress brought them their checks, and they all settled them. Rachel tried getting Craig to talk again when they were all pulling on their coats and heading out of the restaurant, but by this point, tired of trying to navigate the minefield that was whatever was going on between her and Tweek and tired in general of being around people, Craig addressed Tweek, asking, “Is it still okay if I get a ride home?”

Tweek, who had been looking sort of put out, just exhaled a soft laugh. “I’m not going to leave you stranded out here, man.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Craig said, and by then they were outside, everybody saying their goodbyes. Rachel said goodbye to everybody else, then turned to Craig and Tweek.

“So, do you think I’ll be seeing you around?” she asked Craig, smiling at him.

Craig shrugged. “I’m friends with Tweek, so probably.”

“Good,” she said decidedly, then put a hand on his forearm, gripping it slightly. “It was really nice meeting you.”

“Yeah. Uh. You too,” Craig said, even though he didn’t think he’d ever felt more awkward in his life.

“I’ll see you later, Tweek?” she then asked, turning to him. 

Tweek nodded, his eye twitching. He was clenching his jaw again. “Y-yeah. See you later.”

Rachel nodded, and, after sending another quick smile over her shoulder at them, went off in search of her car, and Craig followed Tweek to his.

They were silent all the way until Tweek pulled them out of the parking lot, when he stiffly said, “So, what street do you live on?”

“You know those apartment complexes on Castello?” Tweek nodded. “That’s where I live.”

“Okay,” Tweek said, ignoring the clunking and groaning of his car. 

They were quiet for another few minutes. Craig didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he should apologize for anything he said earlier, or if the silence was just that. Tweek looked tired. It was going on four in the morning, and he’d had a long, busy, active day. Craig had just decided on letting him be and not bringing Rachel up when Tweek tersely said, “Rachel seemed to really like you.”

“What’s not to like. I’m great,” Craig joked, and Tweek grinned, clearly amused despite himself. 

His smile fell a little, though, when he went on to ask, “Did you like her?”

Craig hesitated for just an instant, unsure of what to make of that question. If they were together, Tweek might be asking his opinion of her. If they weren’t, this might be Tweek’s way of asking him if he approved of her. He didn’t really know why Tweek would ask him that, but if that’s what Tweek wanted, he supposed he could oblige. “Yeah, she’s okay. She’s not really my type, but I can see why someone would like her.”

That seemed to be a good answer, because Tweek perked up as soon as he said it. He still looked tired, but his smile seemed a lot less forced, and his tone was much friendlier when he said, “Yeah, Rachel’s cool. She’s one of my best friends. We work out together almost every day.”

They were just friends. Well, that solved that mystery. They weren’t together, at least not yet. Craig felt a wave of relief wash over him. That meant that all the nitpicky comments he’d made about Tweek’s coffee and clenched teeth had just been perceived as weird instead of him crossing a boundary that should have been hers. That was good. 

“How’d you meet her?” Craig asked, feeling much more comfortable now.

“Through the club,” Tweek answered. “And then we found out that we work out at the same gym, and so we made plans to work out together and it went from there.”

“Oh. Cool,” Craig said.

“Do you see a lot of Clyde and Token still?” Tweek asked.

“Yeah,” Craig said. “They come over at least once a week. And Kenny lives one floor below me, so I see him pretty much every day.”

“Do you see much of anybody else?” Tweek asked curiously.

Craig shook his head. “No, not really. Sometimes Kevin Stoley, when something new comes out. We have plans to see the new Star Wars when that’s released. Nobody else, though, unless Clyde and Token have them around.”

“Do you know what everybody’s up to, though?” Tweek asked. “Unless they come into the coffee shop, I don’t see anybody from school.”

“I know a little bit,” Craig said. “Jimmy’s at U.C. Berkeley for music. I know he’s part of an improv group there, and he comes home during breaks. Kevin is in Denver, studying astronomy and physics. Token goes to Denver too, for medicine, he wants to be a doctor, but he still lives at home. Clyde’s at the same school as us, studying psychology. I think he wants to be a counselor or a therapist or something. Um. Jason’s at Colorado State, I don’t know what for. And that’s it.”

“What about Stan and Kyle? Or Butters?” Tweek asked. “Do you know anything about them?”

Craig frowned. “Not really,” he admitted. “Kyle’s out of state, I know that. I think he’s studying computer science. Stan’s at the community college, I’ve seen him around, but we don’t talk much. And I forget that Butters exists sometimes, but I know he and Kenny are still good friends. Where he is or what he’s doing, though, I don’t know.”

Tweek nodded, then smirked. “What about Cartman?”

“I do my best to forget he exists,” Craig muttered darkly. “I don’t care what he’s doing.”

“So you two never became good pals?” Tweek asked, smothered amusement choking him up a little.

“Fuck no,” Craig said. “I don’t see him around, and I don’t want to.”

Tweek just laughed. “I see a lot of the girls,” he said, changing the subject. Craig was grateful. “Bebe and Red and Nichole. They stop in a lot at the coffee shop.”

“Yeah, you always were good friends with them,” Craig remembered. “And Wendy too. What’s up with her?”

“She’s studying political science at some school in Vermont,” Tweek said. “She usually only comes home for Christmas and for like, a week in the summer.”

“Well, that sucks,” Craig said, trying for sympathetic. He wasn’t sure if Tweek picked up on it, though. “Do you guys keep in touch?”

Tweek shrugged one shoulder. He seemed to have learned his lesson, because it was on his uninjured side. “Not a whole lot,” he admitted. “We’re both really busy. But she always makes an effort to see me when she does come home, so that’s pretty cool. She’s one of those friends where we could go a long time without seeing each other and pick up right where we left off.”

“Yeah, Kevin’s kind of like that too,” Craig said. “Except we’re not really close. I think we only hang out with each other because nobody else will watch all the sci-fi shit we’re into.”

“I know what you mean,” Tweek said. “Except for Rachel, I’m not close with anyone else.”

“Yeah, I’ve got Kenny, Clyde, and Token,” Craig said. “They’re the only people whose lives I really give a shit about. Well. And yours, too, now that we’re talking again.”

“Yeah,” Tweek said, and Craig noticed his grip tighten a bit on the steering wheel. “Speaking of that, you said something about hanging out again?”

“Oh, yeah,” Craig said. “When are you free? We could hang out and study or something.”

“That would be cool,” Tweek said. “I, uh. I’m not free a whole lot though. Between work and school and training, I’m usually really busy.”

“Oh,” was all Craig could think of to say.

“Wednesdays are usually clearer for me,” Tweek said. “And if you want to study, I can move my schedule around.”

“No, no,” Craig said. Tweek lived by routines. He didn’t want him to shake things up on his account. “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine, dude,” Tweek said. “Since I don’t have to go to campus for school, I have a lot of freedom with my schedule. Usually I work the closing shift on Wednesdays and study and work out in the morning, but my parents wouldn’t mind switching with me, and I don’t see a trainer on Wednesdays, so I can work out whenever I want. Are you free on Wednesdays?”

“Oh,” Craig said. “Yeah. I’m out of work at six every day. Or I was. My schedule’s gonna switch around a bit with my new job, but I know I’ll at least be free this Wednesday.”

“Okay. So, Wednesday at six thirty, then?” Tweek asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Craig said. They were in sight of his apartment now. He was glad they’d had this conversation now instead of over text; given how infrequently they both texted, it would have taken them a week to figure it all out. 

“Did you want to just do it at your house? I’d suggest the coffee shop, but... you know how my parents are,” Tweek said, pulling into Craig’s driveway.

“That works for me,” Craig said. “I can make dinner if you want. I’ll have to anyways, ‘cause I’ll have to eat.”

“Cool,” Tweek said, coming to a stop right outside of Craig’s door. “Then I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“Cool,” Craig echoed, unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out of the car. “Yeah. See you then.”

As he walked to the door, he could feel Tweek’s eyes following him, and he noticed that Tweek didn’t move the car an inch until he was safely inside. He felt the same sort of derisive gratitude that he felt towards Clyde for the gesture, although, maybe because he was so tired, or maybe because he didn’t feel quite comfortable enough with Tweek again yet, it was a little less derisive, and a little more grateful. 

Whichever the case, Craig didn’t spend long thinking about it. As soon as the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of home hit him, he felt exhaustion hit him like a wrecking ball, and as soon as his head hit his pillow, he was out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter shouldn't be long. It's already done. It'll just be a matter of finding the time to post it. 
> 
> Hope y'all liked this one! I did.


	9. You Don't Know How It Feels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _People come, people go_   
>  _Some grow young, some grow cold_   
>  _I woke up in between_   
>  _A memory and a dream_
> 
> _But let me get to the point, let's roll another joint_   
>  _And turn the radio loud, I'm too alone to be proud_   
>  _You don't know how it feels_   
>  _You don't know how it feels to be me_

When he woke up later that day, he came out of his room to find Kenny lounging on his couch, flipping through channels. He was tempted to turn around and go back to his room and hide out there until Kenny left, but just as he shifted to turn back the way he came, Kenny glanced over and saw him.

“About fucking time,” Kenny greeted. “Do you know how long I’ve been sitting here?”

“Longer than you should have, since you have your own apartment?” Craig guessed, going to the kitchen and getting a glass of water. He looked at the clock on the stove; it was almost eleven.

“Yeah, probably,” Kenny conceded when Craig came back out of the kitchen. He sat down in his seat on the couch and took the remote from Kenny, putting it on the Syfy channel. They were playing an action movie, because apparently that was what sci-fi was now. Grumbling under his breath, Craig turned the TV off, and waited for Kenny to say whatever it was he wanted to say so he would leave.

“How was dinner with Tweek and his friends?” Kenny asked, and Craig should have known that’s what it would be about. Craig was a gossip, he had no problems admitting that, but Kenny was almost shamelessly involved in everybody’s business. He had to know everything, and he would badger and wheedle until he got the information he wanted. Craig normally didn’t mind it--in fact, Kenny was one of the best people to gossip with, because Kenny knew everything, but when it came to his own business, Craig would have much preferred for Kenny to fuck off and leave him alone.

“Fine,” Craig said shortly.

“Did you have fun?” Kenny asked.

“I guess.”

“What did you all talk about?”

“I don’t know. A lot of things.”

“Like what?”

It was going to be one of those conversations, Craig realized with dismay. One of those ones where Kenny wheedled. He put his cup down on the coffee table with a sigh and resigned himself to it. There was no putting Kenny off when he set his mind to this. Craig would just have to suck it up and have the conversation. Hopefully it would be short.

“I talked to Rachel a lot,” Craig said. “Talked about what she does, and what I do. I thought she and Tweek might have a thing, and I said something that I thought might have crossed a line, so then I stopped talking.”

Kenny frowned. “Tweek and Rachel?”

“Yeah. I thought they might have been dating,” Craig said. “They’re not, but I thought they might be.”

“Why did you think that?” Kenny asked, as if the idea were ridiculous.

Craig shrugged. “I don’t know. She batted her eyelashes at him at one point, and he got all bashful about it? It seemed pretty flirty to me.”

“Why’d she do that?”

“Uh,” Craig racked his brains, trying to remember the exact circumstances. “Oh. They were talking about a party, and Tweek said he wasn’t going to go, and she said, ‘Even though I’m going,’ and then she did it.”

“What did Tweek say?”

“He just kind of snorted.”

“Oh,” Kenny said, grinning. “Okay. Yeah, I can see why you’d think that,” he said, but Craig felt like he might just be humoring him. “So, anyways. What did you say?”

“About what?”

“You said that you said something that might have crossed a line. What did you say?”

“Oh,” Craig said. “Tweek told me that he was trying to cut down on the coffee, so when he asked for a refill, I nagged him about it. And then later, he was clenching his teeth, and I told him to stop ‘cause that gives him headaches.”

“...That doesn’t seem that bad, dude,” Kenny said, nonplussed.

“No, but if they were dating, it could have been,” Craig said. “It’s not my place to nag him if he’s got a girlfriend.”

Kenny seemed perplexed by this. “Uh.... What?”

Craig sighed exasperatedly. “It would be weird,” Craig said. “Because when we were kids, when we were dating, that was... that was my thing. I looked out for him. That’s. I. If they were...” Growing ever more frustrated, Craig just let out an annoyed grunt and said, “You know what, never mind.”

“It’s fine, I think I get it,” Kenny said. “So, you said you talked to Rachel a lot?”

“Yeah,” Craig said, trying to stem his irritation. “She was asking me a lot of questions. She called me mysterious. It was hilarious.”

One of Kenny’s eyebrows went straight for his hairline. “Uh. Did she?”

“Yeah. They were all talking about the fights and stuff, and then she felt bad because she thought they were excluding me from the conversation. I didn’t care, so I told her I don’t talk much anyways, and she told me I was mysterious.”

Kenny snorted. “You’re about as mysterious as a brick, dude.”

“I know,” Craig scoffed. “Tweek told her that I’m not if you ask me about something I’m interested in, so she did. We talked about animals and stuff. She told me that she dances, and then she brought up caper... capoi... uh. Whatever kind of martial art she studies. It seemed pretty cool. And that was when I noticed Tweek gritting his teeth, and then I called him out for it, and I didn’t talk much after that.”

“Did Tweek talk much?”

“No, not really,” Craig said. Now that they were in the middle of it, and now that he was a little more awake, and especially now that he’d realized Kenny was just asking about facts and happenings, and not his personal feelings, he was much more keen to talk about it. “He was spacing out a lot. I think he was tired. We talked a lot more in the car though. I think he asked me if I approved of Rachel, which was weird.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. He said, ‘Rachel seemed to like you,’ so I said ‘Yeah, what’s not to like?’ Then he asked me if I liked her and I said that she’s not my type, but I could see why he’d like her.”

Kenny sighed heavily and covered his face with his hands. “Craig, you are such a fucking dumbass.”

“What?” Craig asked, confused. 

“He wasn’t asking you if you approved of her for him. She was flirting with you, and he was trying to gauge your interest in her,” Kenny explained to him. 

Craig opened his mouth to refute that, but then he started to look closer at the events of that morning. She had cut off a conversation to include Craig, and then did nothing but try to talk to him at the expense of the rest of the table. She had called him mysterious, had told him he was ‘fit,’ had refused to call him boring. She’d been smiling at him all night, had seemed pleased when he said she would probably see him around, and had touched his arm when saying goodbye. 

Oh. Yeah. Okay. She may have been flirting with him.

Well, shit.

“Oh, shit,” Craig said simply. “Well, that sucks for her, I guess.”

“You didn’t mention at all that you’re gay?” Kenny asked, grinning.

“No. Why would I?” Craig asked. “I’m not just going to come out and say it for no reason. If it came up, I would have, but it’s not really a conversation piece.”

Kenny chuckled. “What about Tweek?”

“What about Tweek?”

“Did he say anything about whether he’s actually gay or not?”

“No. Again, it never came up,” Craig said. “I don’t care if people ask me straight out, but I don’t think he’d be cool with it, so I didn’t.”

“But you wanted to.”

“I was wondering. But it doesn’t really matter, so I figured I’d let it go.”

Kenny huffed through his nose, wryly amused. “You know, even now, you’re way more considerate when Tweek’s involved.”

Craig shrugged, and he could feel the stirrings of defensiveness start to tighten his shoulders. There it was; the turn of the conversation he should have known was coming. He shouldn’t have let his defenses lower. Kenny could read him like a book, and knew exactly when to catch him off guard with a statement about feelings. “I’ve seen the kind of stuff he goes through when he’s anxious often enough to know how to handle him. I learned a long time ago how not to set him off, and I prefer not to do it. If you or Clyde or Token were like that, it would be the same for you guys.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kenny said, and Craig couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or not. Kenny then stood up and stretched widely, catching Craig off guard. What, that was it? “Well, I’m gonna go,” he said, yawning. “I’ve got to help Karen with some school stuff.”

In the three paces Kenny took from the end of the couch to the door, Craig debated with himself whether or not to inform Kenny of his plans for Wednesday. On the one hand, he knew Kenny would want to know that, his interest in his friendship with Tweek weird but, likely, benign. And this conversation had been mostly painless, which he hadn’t expected. But on the other hand, Kenny would want to know that, and he had just ambushed Craig into a conversation the instant he got out of bed. It was a tough choice.

Decency won out; Kenny had done him a favor by taking his car home last night, thus letting Craig hang out with Tweek long enough to make solid plans on their own. “Just a heads up, Tweek’s coming over on Wednesday,” Craig said offhandedly, reaching for the remote off the coffee table.

Kenny paused, the door halfway open. “Oh, really? Here?”

Craig rolled his eyes. “No, he’s going to check out the dumpster outside.”

Half of Kenny’s mouth quirked up wryly. “I’ll be sure to steer clear that night, then. Wouldn’t want to third wheel your date.”

Craig clicked the TV on and started flipping through the channels, offering Kenny nothing more than a “Fuck off,” and feeling irritation flow freely through his veins when Kenny’s response to that was just to snicker and shut the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

Craig spent Saturday as he usually did; as nice as it had been to see Tweek last weekend, and as much as he had anticipated it at the time, it felt better to return to his usual schedule. He ran his errands, did his chores, did homework and made dinner and watched TV, and went to bed only when he passed out on his couch, a Doctor Who rerun lulling him to sleep. 

His Sunday morning was spent much the same way. Kenny typically worked at his uncle’s garage on Sundays, Clyde was a late sleeper, and Token usually spent his Sundays catching up on homework and studying, so Craig’s Sundays were always peacefully uninterrupted. He ate when he was hungry, napped if he felt tired, studied if he felt motivated, cleaned if he felt it was warranted. Sometimes he’d sit and fuck around on his phone, or play games on his Xbox. At three in the afternoon, he showered and changed his clothes. By three thirty, he was in his car, and he arrived at his parents’ house by three forty, as he did every week.

The instant he walked through the door, he was immediately greeted with a, “Look who finally decided to honor me with his presence.”

From the rocker near the window, his Grandma was giving him a teasing glare, and he gave her the wide, toothy smile reserved solely for her.

“Hi, Grandma,” he said, taking off his coat and hanging it up on the coat rack by the door.

“And that’s all the greeting I get, huh? I haven’t seen you for a month at least, and that’s it? ‘Hi, Grandma?’ You millennials, you have no respect for your elders,” she grumbled, then groaned softly as she pushed herself out of the chair.

Craig flipped her off as he kicked off his shoes, and she laughed. When he got close enough, she pulled him in for a hug, squeezing him far more tightly than she looked like she could. He hugged her back, though much more gently.

“It’s nice to see you, Craig,” she said, softer this time.

“You too,” Craig said.

She hummed, then squeezed a little tighter and let him go. “You’re too skinny,” she said, her tone returning to the teasingly snappish one she’d greeted him with as she lowered herself gently back into the rocker. “You eating enough, Craig?”

“I eat like a pig,” Craig said, leaning against the arm of the sofa. “I’m just like this.”

“Eat more,” she demanded. “You’re a boy, aren’t you? Gay or not, you need some meat on your bones.”

“I don’t know what being gay has to do with my weight, but okay, Grandma,” Craig said, rolling his eyes. He’d never anticipated his grandma having any issue with his being gay; in fact, Craig’s dad had been the most anxious about it. He himself had had a few hangups about it when Craig first had been labelled way back when, and he’d worried that Grandma wouldn’t take it well. But when they’d finally told her (Craig had been about fourteen when they finally decided she should know), she’d just snorted and said, “So? You want a medal?”

(Later that night, when Craig was helping her out to her car, she’d given him one of her classic tight hugs and said she loved him no matter what, and Craig had gone back into the house feeling more relieved than he’d expected to feel.)

Grandma just shook her head. “You kids are all the same. No respect, none at all.”

Craig had just opened his mouth to retort when Trish came thundering down the stairs. “Oh, hey, Craig,” she greeted him casually, then headed into the kitchen, from which Craig could hear his parents talking. Craig watched her go over his shoulder, and his Grandma said, “Go say hi to them, I’ll be right here.”

Craig nodded and followed Trish right into the argument she was having with their father.

“What do you mean, you need the car?” Thomas snapped. “It’s Sunday. Sunday is family day.”

“Karen needs a ride over to where Kenny is, she needs to get something from the store and he’s lending her some money,” Trish argued. 

“She’s got legs.”

“Thomas,” Laura said warningly.

“What? She does!”

“It’s a three hour walk, Dad! One way! And it’s freezing!”

“No it’s not. It’s 35 today. That’s practically spring,” Thomas said. “Besides, can’t whatever she needs at the store wait? She’s his sister, he can go get her when he’s done.”

“She can’t wait for tampons, Dad!” Trish fought, her voice getting progressively less patient, and progressively more loud. That’s how she got her way every time, and Trish was smart enough to know not to fix what wasn’t broken. “That’s not how it works.”

Thomas just scowled. “She can’t just borrow some of yours and pay you back?”

Trish just sighed loudly. “We don’t use the same kind, Dad, I wouldn’t go to all the trouble of driving her around if we did.”

Laura rolled her eyes from her place at the counter and said, “Just take my car, sweetie. My keys are in my purse.”

Thomas stood abruptly. “The hell she is, your car’s new. Fine, take the damn car,” he relented, as he always did, then reached in his pocket, withdrew his keys, and tossed them to her. Trish beamed, and said, “Thanks! I’ll be back in a bit!” as she ran out the door.

Craig tactfully waited until she had pulled out of the driveway before pointing out, “You know, you could have just told Trish to lend her the money.”

Thomas looked back up from where he’d pointedly returned to reading his paper, closed his eyes, and said, “God damn it.”

 

* * *

 

It was a few hours before dinner was done, and Craig spent the bulk of that time watching old MASH reruns in the living room with his grandma, the two of them occasionally having a brief conversation about what they’d been up to, or making random comments about what was happening in the show. At one point, Thomas asked for Craig’s help out in the garage, and Craig reluctantly but dutifully went to help him.

Thomas was clearing out old boxes, sorting through stuff he meant to keep and stuff he meant to get rid of. This was a weekly project, and only rarely resulted in things getting thrown out. He wasn’t a hoarder, necessarily; he was just thrifty, and didn’t like to throw things away that might get some use in the nebulous future. Craig got his frugality from somewhere, and it wasn’t his mother.

“Dad, I don’t even know what this is,” Craig said, pulling out a rusted old hand tool that probably had some sort of purpose, but had likely never fulfilled it in the Tucker household.

Thomas looked at it and frowned. “You know what,” he said. “I don’t either. I’m not even sure when I bought that.” He reached over and took it, inspecting it more closely, but it’s proximity did not offer him any hints. “Hm,” he said disdainfully. “I guess we can get rid of it.”

Craig nodded and took it back, then set it over in the empty space Thomas had optimistically cleared to be the trash pile. It sat there alone. Craig turned back to his box and kept looking.

They worked in silence for a while afterward, only speaking when Craig came upon something so covered in dust it had likely never been touched, let alone used, until eventually, Thomas asked, as casually as he could, “So. You see anything of Tweek since last week?”

Craig could lie if he had to. He just did it rarely, and he was even more rarely tempted to, but right now was one of those times. He’d managed to avoid a spectacle last week, somehow, and he was keen to keep avoiding them, and if his parents didn’t know that he and Tweek were hanging out again, it would be a lot easier. But South Park was a small town, and still to this day, people he hadn’t seen in a while would ask him about Tweek. If they were seen hanging around and it got back to his parents that he’d lied about it, it would cause him even more trouble. The truth won out. “Yeah,” he said reluctantly. “I ran into him on campus on Monday, and saw him again on Friday.” He hesitated before adding the next bit, but following his earlier logic, it felt tantamount to a lie to exclude it. “We’ve got plans to hang out on Wednesday.”

To his credit, Thomas managed to rein in the bulk of his enthusiasm. “That’s great!” he said happily, smiling widely at his son. “What are you guys getting up to?”

Craig shrugged. “Probably just gonna study or watch TV or something. I’m gonna make dinner. I don’t know.”

“You’re hanging out at your place?” Thomas asked, his tone suddenly changed. More serious, less cheerful.

“Yeah?” 

“Oh,” Thomas said, frowning down at his box. Curious, but not daring to ask, Craig returned to his box, sorting through it. It was quiet again, and Craig could sense that his dad was working himself up to say something, and he dreaded every second of it. It was a full minute of silence before Thomas looked back up and said, “So, we never got around to having this discussion, ‘cause I guess it just never came up when you were younger, but you do know how to be safe, right?”

“Jesus Christ,” Craig said, dropping whatever bit of old junk he’d been holding in alarm. It crashed into the box and probably broke to pieces, but neither Craig nor Thomas paid it any attention. “No. Fuck. No.”

Thomas looked oddly like he’d been expecting this, and said, “So, it’s gonna be different between two guys, but the essentials--”

“What the fuck!” Craig almost shouted. “Dad. Jesus, dude, I didn’t mean I don’t know, I meant, don’t. We don’t need to have this conversation.”

“It’s even more awkward for me than it is for you, Craig, but you need to know, you can’t just go around having unsafe sex, even if--”

“Dad, holy fuck,” Craig said, staring pointedly at his box, unable and very unwilling to let his dad continue. “We’re not. It’s not that. We’re just friends. We’re hanging out as friends.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, torn between disappointment at this revelation and relief that they didn’t need to continue with the talk. “So it’s not a date?”

“No, fuck,” Craig said, still staring at the box, willing it to explode so he could die and escape from this terrible, terrible conversation. “Jesus, no. I don’t even know if he’s actually gay, dude.”

At that, Thomas looked taken aback. “What do you mean, you don’t know if he’s gay? You guys were dating for, what, three years?”

“Yeah, when we were, like. Ten,” Craig pointed out. “After everybody in town told us we were gay. It doesn’t mean he’s actually gay.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, looking down at his own box in confusion. “So, then, wait. Are you actually gay?”

Craig was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to leave and never come back. “Yes, I am actually gay.”

“Oh, okay,” Thomas said. “Not that it would have mattered either way,” he continued, and Craig knew he meant that. “I guess I just never considered that. I always assumed... but I guess that’s my own fault.”

“I guess,” Craig added, less because it was a meaningful contribution and more because he had to do something, say something, to lessen the horrendous awkwardness he felt.

For a moment, it seemed like Thomas was content to leave it at that. Craig almost finished sorting through his box when Thomas finally piped back up, “So, would you want him to be gay, or...?”

At that, Craig dropped whatever it was in his hands and left the garage.

 

* * *

 

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully, but Craig had a hard time looking his dad in the eye for the rest of the night, and Thomas seemed equally troubled. When dinner was done, Craig and Trish  did the dishes as they always did, and managed only a minor squabble. After the dishes were done, everybody sat around the TV in the living room, watching whatever reality show Craig’s mom was into that season (for the life of him, he couldn’t tell them apart, he hated reality TV), and at nine o’clock on the dot, Craig decided to get going. After saying his goodbyes to his family, and reassuring his Grandma once again that he was fine, he didn’t need money, and he’d make sure he got enough to eat this week, he got in his car and drove home. 

As he was walking up the stairs, he narrowly avoided bumping into Kenny, who seemed distracted and harried, not stopping as he offered a “Hey, Craig,” merely side-stepping him and continuing his hurried descent down the stairs, not even giving Craig the chance to ask him what was up. Shrugging it off, figuring he’d ask about it later (but never getting the chance; he’d forget all about it by the next morning), he went the rest of the way up to his apartment, where he changed into his pajamas, grabbed a bag of chips, and sat down on the couch, flipping through channels.

He couldn’t settle on anything. He felt a weird combination of restlessness and irritability that he couldn’t determine the source of, but his dad asking him, “So, would you want him to be gay?” kept popping up in his thoughts. What did it matter, what he wanted? If Tweek was gay, he was gay, and if he wasn’t, then he wasn’t, and whatever he wanted wouldn’t change that. What a stupid question. His dad was such a dumbass sometimes.

But now that he thought about it, it was kind of hard to imagine Tweek with a girlfriend. Craig had never known him to be interested in girls, even before they’d been forced together. To his memory (and he had a very long memory), Tweek had never expressed interest in any of the girls in their class, had anxiously refused any advances made his way, and had always seemed, if not disdainful, then at least clearly uninterested. But how much of that could Craig chalk up to them being kids, and how much of it could be indicative of Tweek’s early expressions of his sexuality? It was hard to tell, because, except for Craig, Tweek had never seemed interested in any other guys, either, although Craig could admit that before the two of them were a thing, he’d never considered that Tweek could be gay, so he’d never really looked out for signs of it. Before they’d started dating, he supposed he hadn’t really cared to pay attention one way or another whether anyone was gay or not. He himself was a case in point.

He could try to figure it out now, but that would be tricky without asking him directly. Craig knew better than to try to judge by stereotypes; however Tweek might act now couldn’t be a clear indicator of his sexuality, and even if it were, Tweek couldn’t really be said to fit into stereotypes. He never could. His behavior was so erratic, and changed from day to day based on his mental state, so that it was hard to judge what ‘Tweek’ behavior was, and what his anxious behavior was, though Craig had, after a few months, started to learn the difference once he set to figuring it out. 

He wouldn’t know now, though. Tweek had undergone so drastic a change since they were kids, Craig could hardly tell anymore. And so, he supposed, if he really wanted to know if Tweek were gay or not, he’d just have to ask him. 

He was brought up short when it occurred to him that, regardless of the answer, it really shouldn’t matter to him so much. They were friends now, and if Tweek ever introduced him to a girlfriend or a boyfriend, well, Craig would just roll with it. A gossip though he may be, it wasn’t like him to be so curious about someone else’s sexuality (too many prying questions about his own growing up had turned him off of speculating on other people’s), and he decided to blame this curiosity on Kenny and his dad for bringing it up so much, making him curious. He’d just have to stop thinking about it. It didn’t matter. 

So, he focused instead on watching the Battlestar Galactica episode he’d accidentally come across, and thoroughly enjoyed minding his own business until he was tired enough to go to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sat on this chapter for a long time--even when I was writing it for NaNoWriMo two years ago--because I just. Don't like it? I think ultimately it's a pointless chapter, and I should probably just omit it, but I'm hesitant to do that just because it further explains where Craig's mind is at--firmly in denial of quite a few things, or else completely oblivious. Also I did actually sit down and put the work into writing it and trying to edit the shit out of it, even though any attempts to make this chapter sit better with me proved fruitless. Oh well. Sorry, I suppose.
> 
> In happier news, that Kenny spinoff I mentioned a few chapters (months--sorry) ago? Wound up being my NaNo project last year. And I finished it. Or rather, I finished the first part of it. It's gonna be a series rather than one story, just because Kenny's got quite a few irons in the fire, and as I was writing it, I realized that it flows better that way. So, it'll be some time before it's up for reading (I have a lot going on irl, and still no laptop of my own, so I don't get much time to work on it), but the first part of the series IS complete, and I'm slowly working on it, ironing out a few bugs, making sure it's going where I want it to go. I'm actually pretty proud of it. As rushed as my NaNo experience was this year, I think I've got a really solid foundation on it, and I'm very excited to publish it.
> 
> Anyways, again, I'm sorry for the long wait on this chapter. Sorry this one's not exactly one of the better ones. I'm really excited about the next one, though, and I think once you guys get a chance to read it, hopefully you'll forgive me for this one. :) Thanks for reading.


End file.
